University  of  California. 

FROM    THK    I.IF.KAKV    OF 

DR.    FRANCIS     L  I  E  B  K  R  : 

Professor  of  History  and  Law  in  Columbia  College,  Now  York. 


THK   GIFT   OF 

MICHAEL     REESE 

Of  San  Francisco. 
1873.- 


AN 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 


OF 


COLUMBIA  COLLEGE, 


IN    THE 


CITY  OF  NEW-YORK. 


BY 

N .     F .     MOORE. 


NEW- YORK: 

PRINTED  FOR  COLUMBIA  COLLEGE. 
1846. 


Ml 


LEAV1TT,  TROW    &    CO.,    PRINT., 
33  Ann-street.  N.  Y. 


COLUMBIA  COLLEGE. 


THE  settlement  of  New  Amsterdam,  under 
the  auspices  of  a  trading  company,  by  men 
chiefly  occupied  in  the  pursuit  of  gain,  stamped 
on  the  City  of  New- York,  even  from  its  origin,  a 
character  which,  though  determining  its  destiny 
perhaps — favored  as  it  is  by  various  circum- 
stances— to  become,  what  it  seems  fast  growing 
to  be,  the  greatest  emporium  of  the  world,  was 
ill-suited  to  advance  the  cause  of  science  or  of 
letters,  except  in  so  far  as  the  former,  by  its  sub- 
servience to  useful  arts,  might  seem  calculated  to 
promote  the  utilitarian  views  of  men  devoted  to 
the  acquisition  of  wealth. 

This  colony,  it  is  true,  was  founded  by  Hol- 
land during  the  most  glorious  period  of  her  his- 
tory ;  but  there  was  nothing  about  it  of  a  nature 
to  invite  the  statesmen,  philosophers,  scholars, 
and  artists  of  the  parent  state ;  nor  was  there 
any  thing  in  the  political  or  the  religious  condi- 
tion of  the  now  free  and  prosperous  republic,  to 


4  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

compel  her  citizens  to  seek  elsewhere  an  asylum. 
With  the  exception,  therefore,  of  civil  and  re- 
ligious functionaries — and  among  the  former 
Governor  Stuyvesant  is  entitled  to  especial  no- 
tice— our  Dutch  ancestors  were  almost  entirely 
absorbed  in  trade. 

The  English,  who,  on  the  transfer  of  the 
province  in  1674,  came  in,  were  for  the  most  part 
as  indifferent  to  learning  as  the  Dutch  had  been  ; 
and  even  sixty-seven  years  afterwards  there 
were,  in  all  the  province,  to  be  found  but  ten 
men  who  had  received  a  collegiate  education. 
The  Huguenots,  and  the  Germans  of  the  Pala- 
tinate, who  fled  hither  from  religious  persecution, 
were  men  who  might,  like  our  eastern  brethren, 
have  turned  their  thoughts  to  the  foundation  of 
a  seat  of  learning ;  but  their  comparatively  small 
number,  and  difference  of  language,  made  them, 
for  a  long  time,  strangers,  as  it  were,  in  the  land 
which  afforded  them  a  refuge. 
v  This  diversity  of  language — for  Dutch,  Eng- 
lish, French,  and  German,  were  all  spoken  in  the 
province. — and  a  corresponding  difference  of  re- 
ligion, either  as  to  doctrine  or  external  forms, 
were  no  doubt  among  the  causes  which  so  long 
retarded  the  establishment  of  a  college  in  New- 
York.  For  a  college  was,  by  our  ancestors, 
rightly  regarded  as  a  religious,  no  less  than  a 
scientific  and  literary  institution  ;  and  they  may 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  5 

have  found  it  hard  to  combine  the  heterogeneous 
elements  of  their  social  system  in  any  harmoni- 
ous action  on  a  subject  of  such  near  concern- 
ment. It  appears,  too,  that  a  further  reason  for 
this  delay  was  a  diversity  of  opinion  as  to  the 
most  eligible  situation  for  a  seminary  of  learn- 
ing. The  author  of  a  pamphlet  written,  as  is 
thought,  not  long  before  the  establishment  of  our 
college,  says :  "  It  gives  me  pleasure  to  under- 
stand, that  the  founding  of  a  college  in  this 
province,  begins  now  to  be  seriously  considered ; 
and  as  this  great  work  seems  chiefly  retarded  by 
the  difficulty  of  agreeing  on  a  proper  place  for 
fixing  it,  I  beg  leave  to  submit  my  impartial 
thoughts  on  this  head  to  the  consideration  of  the 
public.  As  to  the  situation,  then,  I  cannot  help 
being  surprised  to  hear  it  disputed — some  retired 
corner,  either  within,  or  close  by  the  City  of  New 
York,  being  certainly  the  only  proper  place  in 
this  province  for  erecting  a  college." 

It  was  not  till  1693,  about  seventy  years  after 
the  settlement  of  our  city,  that  its  first  printing 
press  was  set  up,  and  sixty-one  years  later  still 
before  its  college  was  established.  How  different 
in  this  respect  the  course  of  Boston  !  Its  first 
settlers  being  men  who  understood  and  felt  the 
importance  of  education — who  were,  moreover, 
of  one  nation,  one  language,  and  as  to  religion, 
mostly  of  pne  mind — we  find  them,  only  gix 


6  AN   HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

years  after  the  first  settlement  of  their  city,  adopt- 
ing measures  for  the  erection  of  a  college;  at 
which,  two  years  later,  in  1638,  the  regular 
course  of  academic  studies  was  commenced ;  and 
in  the  following  year,  1639,  the  first,  and  which 
for  many  years  continued  to  be  the  only  printing 
press  in  these  provinces,  was  set  up  at  Cambridge 
as  an  appendage  to  its  college. 

At  what  period  the  design  of  establishing  a 
college  in  New- York  was  first  seriously  enter- 
tained does  not  appear.  The  earliest  intimation 
that  has  been  discovered  of  any  such  design  "  is 
contained  in  the  records  of  Trinity  Church. 
From  them  it  appears,  that  as  early  as  the  year 
1703,  the  Rector  and  Wardens  were  directed  to 
wait  upon  Lord  Cornbury,  the  Governor,  to  know 
what  part  of  the  King's  Farme,  then  vested  in 
Trinity  Church,  had  been  intended  for  the  col- 
lege which  he  designed  to  have  built."* 
/  Some  such  plan  was  thought  of  again,  it 
seems,  in  1729,  during  Berkeley's  residence  in 
this  country  ;  and  when  disappointed  as  regard- 
ed Bermuda,  he  sought  to  transfer  the  establish- 
ment which  had  been  intended  for  that  island  to 
"  some  place  on  the  American  Continent,  which 
would  probably  have  been  New- York. "t 

*  Address  delivered  before  the  Alumni  of  Col.  Coll.,  by  C.  C, 
Moore,  p.  4. 

t  Chandler's  life  of  Johnson,  p.  53.  In  this  same  year,  1729- 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  7 

But  Berkeley's  benevolent  design  having  al- 
ytogether  failed,  we  find  no  mention  of  this  sub- 
^ject  until  near  twenty  years  afterwards,  when 
several  laws  of  the  Colony  were  passed  for  rais- 
ing moneys  by  way  of  lottery,  towards  the  found- 
ing of  a  college  therein  ;  and  Bishop  Berkeley,  in 
a  letter  of  August  23,  1749,  to  Dr.  Johnson,  who 
resided  then  at  Hartford,  in  Connecticut,  says : 
"  For  the  rest,  I  am  glad  to  find  a  spirit  toward 
learning  prevails  in  those  parts,  particularly  New- 
York,  where  you  say  a  college  is  projected,  which 
has  my  best  wishes." 

The  earliest  of  the  laws  just  now  alluded  to, 
^received  the  Governor's  assent  on  the  6th  of  De- 
cember, 1746,  and  was  entitled  "  An  act  for  rais- 
ing the  sum  of  two  thousand  two  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds,  by  a  public  lottery  for  this  colony, 
for  the  encouragement  of  learning,  and  towards 
the  founding  a  college  within  the  same." 

Other  similar  acts  followed,  and  in  November, 
1751,  the  moneys  raised  by  means  of  them, 

the  Corporation  of  New- York,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Provincial 
Assembly,  provided  for  the  reception  of  a  library  of  1000  vol- 
umes, bequeathed  by  Dr.  Millington  to  the  Society  for  the  Propa- 
gation of  the  Gospel,  and  which  the  Society  proposed  to  deposit 
here,  for  the  use  of  the  clergy  and  gentlemen  of  the  neighboring 
provinces.  The  same  obvious  considerations  that  led  to  the  se- 
lection of  New-York  on  this  occasion,  might  naturally  have  in- 
clined Berkeley  to  place  his  college  there. 


8  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

amounting  then  to  £3443  IBs.  Od.,  were  vested 
\/ in  trustees.  Of  these  trustees,  ten  in  number, 
two  belonged  to  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church, 
one  was  a  Presbyterian,  but  seven  were  members 
of  the  Church  of  England,  arid  some  of  these 
seven  were  also  vestrymen  of  Trinity  Church. 
These  circumstances — the  known  sentiments  of 
this  large  majority  of  the  trustees — their  well  un- 
derstood, and  very  natural  desire,  that  the  pro- 
posed college  should  be  connected  with  their 
church — might  sufficiently  account  for  the  offer 
v^made  to  them  by  Trinity  Church,  not  long  after 
their  appointment,  "  of  any  reasonable  quantity 
of  the  Church  farm,  (which  was  not  let  out)  for 
erecting,  and  use  of  a  college ;"  from  what  has 
been  already  stated,  however,  respecting  the  first 
mention  of  a  college  in  the  province — from  the 
inquiry  addressed  by  Trinity  Church  to  Lord 
Cornbury,  in  1703 — it  may  not  unreasonably  be 
inferred,  that  the  then  recent  grant  of  the  King's 
Farm  to  that  corporation,  had  been  made  with  a 
view  to  the  advancement  of  learning  as  well  as 
of  religion  ;  that  some  condition  to  that  effect  had 
been  at  least  implied,  on  occasion  of  that  grant. 

If  such  were  the  case,  the  present  offer  from 
the  church  was  but  the  carrying  out,  after  a  lapse 
of  fifty  years,  of  this  original  design. 

As  regards  the  offer  now  made  to  the  Trus- 
tees, it  seems  highly  probable  that  some  such 


e  F    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  9 

conditions  as  we  find  afterwards  expressed  in  the 
conveyance  from  the  Church  to  the  College, 
when  actually  made,  were,  from  the  first,  in  con- 
templation of  the  parties,  and  understood  be- 
tween them ;  but  neither  in  the  proposal  from 
the  Church,  on  the  8th  of  April,  1752,  nor  in  the 
report  made  thereof  by  the  Trustees  to  the  As- 
sembly,' more  than  two  years  afterwards,  is  there 
mention  of  any  conditions  whatever.  The 
natural  inference,  however,  which  has  been  sug- 
gested, as  to  their  existence,  and  the  jealous  ap- 
prehensions entertained  of  any,  the  smallest,  ap- 
proach to  a  church-establishment  within  the 
province,  caused  violent  opposition  to  the  plan, 
as  soon  as  it  became  known,  of  obtaining  a  royal 
charter  for  the  college.  This  determined  oppo- 
sition to  the  plan  of  the  Trustees,  was  maintained 
chiefly  by  one  of  their  number,  the  only  Presby- 
ian  at  their  Board,  Mr.  William  Livingston  ; 
a  gentleman,  by  his  birth,  his  connexions  and 
his  position  in  society  ;  by  his  superior  education, 
his  industry  and  talents  as  a  lawyer,  already 
eminent ;  and  afterwards,  in  the  various  high 
stations  which  he  filled,  greatly  distinguished  for 
patriotic  devotion  to  his  country.  A  declared 
enemy  of  all  church  establishments,  he,  in  this 
matter  of  the  college,  was  actuated  by  con- 
scientious, probably,  but  mistaken  views  of  the 
design  and  tendency  of  the  incorporation  which 
1* 


10  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

he  so  zealously  endeavoured  to  defeat.  With  this 
view,  he  commenced  on  the  22d  of  March,  1753, 

^  in  The  Independent  Reflector,  a  paper  published 
under  his  direction,  his  "  Remarks  on  our  intend- 
ed College."  After  considering,  first,  the  great 
importance  of  the  institution,  he  goes  on,  in  sub- 
sequent numbers,  to  discuss  the  proper  mode  of 
its  establishment,  which  he  insists  should  be,  not 
by  Charter,  but  by  Act  of  Assembly :  in  which 
case  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  the  plan  of  the 
institution  would  be  more  consistent  with  the 
views  of  those  who  professed  themselves  advo- 
cates "  for  constituting  a  college  on  a  basis  the 
most  catholic,  generous,  and  free." 

\J  This  controversy,  which  became  on  both  sides 
a  very  angry  one,  was  not  terminated  by  the 
granting  of  the  charter;  but  took  after  that  a 
somewhat  different  shape,  in  the  resistance  then 
opposed  by  Mr.  Livingston  and  his  associates  to 
the  passage  of  any  law  transferring  the  moneys 
raised  for  the  endowment  of  a  college  from  the 
hands  of  the  Trustees  to  those  of  the  Governors 
now  appointed  under  the  charter ;  and,  also,  in 
their  endeavours  to  obtain  an  Act  of  Assembly, 
which,  notwithstanding  this  charter  to  King's 
College — invidiously  styled  by  them  a  Trinity 
Church  College — should  establish  another — a 
New-  York  College — in  its  place.  They  denied 
the  right  of  the  Trustees  appointed  in  1751  to 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  11 

apply  moneys  raised  by  general  tax,  to  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  college  connected  with  any  par- 
ticular religious  denomination.  They  entertain- 
ed, however,  an  especial  jealousy  of  its  connexion 
with  the  Church  of  England ;  for  the  Episco- 
palians, though  comparatively  few  in  number, 
had  nevertheless  a  great  ascendency  in  the  prov- 
ince ;  its  chief  public  offices  being,  in  almost 
every  instance,  filled  by  them.  Their  natural 
wish,  moreover,  and  their  repeated  applications 
for  a  Bishop,  to  complete  the  organization  of  their 
church  within  the  colonies,  had  inspired,  and  es- 
pecially about  this  time,  a  dread  of  some  design 
to  extend  to  this  country  the  ecclesiastical  estab- 
lishment of  England. 

The  Independent  Reflect or ',  the  organ  of  Mr. 
Livingston's  opposition  to  the  college,  ceased 
with  its  52d  number,  on  the  22d  of  November, 
1753  ;  the  printer,  Parker,  refusing  to  go  on  with 
it.  In  the  month  of  January  following,  Mr.  Liv- 
ingston ^reprinted  the  whole,  with  a  long  preface ; 
and  bearing  on  its  title  page  "  Printed  until  ty- 
rannically suppressed  in  1753." 

Contemporary  with  this  Independent  Reflec- 
tor, but  of  less  note,  were  several  publications 
relating  to  the  college  controversy,  and  turning 
upon  the  same  points  that  Mr.  Livingston  pro- 
fessed to  have  in  view. 


12  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

In  the  charter  of  King's  College,  which 
though  delayed  by  the  resistance  it  encountered, 
was  granted  finally  on  the  31st  of  October,  1754, 
in  spite  of  it,  Mr.  William  Livingston  was 
named  as  a  governor  ;  but  he  refused  to  take  the 
required  oaths,  or  to  act  as  such,  and  seems  to 
have  been  embittered  against  the  college,  rather 
than  propitiated  by  this  endeavour,  if  such  it 
were,  to  soothe  him. 

On  the  1st  of  November,  1754,  the  day  fol- 
lowing that  on  which  the  charter  passed  the 
seals,  the  Trustees  before  mentioned,  in  conse- 
quence of  an  order  to  that  effect,  made  by  the 
Assembly  a  week  previous,  gave  in  a  report 
signed  by  six  of  their  number — John  Chambers, 
Daniel  Horsmanden,  Edward  Holland,  James 
Livingston,  Benjamin  Nicoll  and  Abraham  De 
Peyster — and  at  the  same  time  Mr.  William  Liv- 
ingston presented  his  counter  report,  which,  to- 
gether with  the  other,  was  entered  at  large  on 
the  journal  of  the  House.  Five  days  afterwards, 
on  Mr.  Livingston's  motion,  it  was  resolved  that 
the  House  would  not  consent  to  any  disposition 
of  the  moneys  raised  by  way  of  lottery  for  found- 
ing a  college,  otherwise  than  by  act  or  acts  of 
legislature  hereafter  to  be  passed;  and  Mr.  Liv- 
ingston obtained  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  entitled 
"  An  Act  further  to  establish  and  to  incorporate 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  13 

a  college  within  this  colony,  for  the  education 
and  instruction  of  youth,  in  the  liberal  arts  and 
sciences." 

It  seems  to  have  been  discovered,  however, 
that  this  bill  could  not,  at  thaUsessionjbe  carried 
through  against  the  opposition  made  to  it,  and 
therefore  three  weeks  after  its  introduction,  on  a 
motion  stating  that  since  the  advanced  season  of 
the  year  would  not  allow  of  its  receiving  then 
the  attention  which  its  vast  importance  required, 
it  was  resolved  that  the  consideration  of  it 
should  be  postponed  until  the  next  meeting  of 
the  House,  and  that  it  should  be  printed  and 
published  meanwhile,  in  order  that  the  mem- 
bers of  the  House  might  have  an  opportunity 
of  learning  the  sentiments  of  their  constituents 
on  so  great  and  important  a  concern. 

The  bill  was  printed  accordingly,  and  Mr. 
Livingston,  with  a  view  to  prepare  and  form  the 
public  opinion  in  regard  to  it,  began  on  the  25th 
of  November,  the  day  preceding  this  order  of  the 
House,  a  series  of  essays  styled  The  Watch 
Tower,  which  was  continued  through  fifty-two 
numbers,  for  about  a  year.  These  papers  were 
printed  in  The  New- York  Mercury  of  Hugh 
Gaine,  who  had  with  difficulty,  it  appears,  been 
induced  to  publish  them.  In  the  last  number, 
which  appeared  on  the  17th  of  November,  1755, 
about  two  months  after  Governor  Hardy's  arrival 


14  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

in  the  province,  the  writer  professes  to  consider 
himself  victorious  over  the  party-college,  as  he 
calls  it,  and  expresses  his  conviction  "  that  big- 
otry will  hide  its  head  in  shame,  under  the  ad- 
ministration of  a  Sir  Charles  Harris" 

In  the  principal  aim  of  their  endeavours,  and  of 
these  essays — the  defeat  of  King's  College  by  the 
passage  of  the  proposed  act — the  opponents  of 
the  college  failed ;  but  they  so  far  succeeded  as 
to  delay  for  two  years  the  payment  over  to  the 
governors  of  any  portion  of  the  moneys  raised 
expressly  for  a  college,  and  finally  to  divert  the 
half  of  them  to  uses  wholly  different ;  since,  by 
an  act  of  Assembly,  approved  December  1st,  1756, 
the  amount  in  the  hands  of  the  Trustees  was 
equally  divided  between  King's  College  and  the 
Corporation  of  the  city  of  New- York. 

The  college  was,  perhaps,  indebted  to  the 
friendship  of  the  newly  arrived  Governor,  Sir 
Charles  Hardy,  upon  whose  support  its  enemies 
had  counted,  for  even  such  portion  as  it  did  ob- 
tain of  these  disputed  funds. 

On  his  arrival  the  opponents  of  the  college 
presented  to  him  in  writing  a  virulent  address 
respecting  it,  of  which  he  took  no  notice,  while 
he  listened  to  that  of  the  governors  of  the  college, 
delivered  in  a  speech  by  the  President,  with  great 
complacency  and  kindness.  He  concluded  his 
reply  to  them  with  saying :  "  You  may  be  as- 


OF    COLUMBIA   COLLEGE.  15 

sured  that  the  college  founded  by  his  majesty's 
royal  charter  will  always  have  my  countenance 
and  protection."  He,  moreover,  expressed  a  wish 
to  see  their  subscription  paper  j  and  the  next  day, 
when  the  President  and  Mr.  Oliver  Delancey 
waited  upon  him  with  it,  he  received  them  very 
courteously,  and,  unsolicited,  subscribed  £500 
towards  the  erection  of  the  college.  "  This  was 
such  a  disappointment  and  mortification  to  its 
opposers,  that  from  that  time  they  were  silent, 
and  gave  no  further  molestation."* 

The  opposition  to  the  chartered  college  claim- 
ed to  stand  upon  the  broad  ground  of  resistance 
against  the  connexion  of  a  seminary  of  learning 
with  any  religious  society  whatever  ;  but  it  was 
no  doubt  greatly  animated,  if  not  wholly  occa- 
sioned, by  a  jealous  dread  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land in  particular,  and  apprehensions  of  encroach- 
ment from  that  quarter  on  the  religious  freedom 
which  the  colonies  enjoyed.  Else  one  might 
suppose  that  these  assailants  of  King's  College 
would  have  proceeded  with  less  intemperate  zeal, 
since  they  had  examples,  not  only  in  the  few 
colleges  then  existing  on  this  continent,  of  such 
connexion  as  they  professed  to  deprecate  so 
greatly;  but,  in  fact,  all  colleges  whatever,  at 
that  period,  belonged  to  religious  communities, 
each  one  to  its  own ;  and  there  was  nowhere 

*  Chandler's  Life  of  Johnson,  p,  95. 


16  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

witnessed  any  such  divorce  of  education  from  re- 
ligion as  is  now,  unhappily,  too  often  seen. 

This  controversy,  which  for  a  time  delayed  thu 
granting  of  the  charter,  and  threatened  after- 
wards to  make  it  nugatory,  did  not  altogether 
paralyze,  meanwhile,  the  hearts  and  hands  of  the 
Trustees.  On  the  22d  of  November,  1753,  they 
determined  to  invite  the  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  John- 
son, of  Stratford,  to  accept  the  presidency  of  the 
intended  college,  with  a  salary  of  £250,  and  Mr. 
Chauncey  Whittlesey,  of  New  Haven,  as  his  as- 
sistant, with  a  salary  of  £200.  They  were  sen- 
sible, they  said,  that  the  salary  proposed  for  Dr- 
Johnson  (though  as  much  as  they  were  able  to 
offer)  was  inadequate  to  his  merit ;  but  they  ex- 
pressed their  belief,  that  the  vestry  of  Trinity 
Church  would  readily  agree  to  make  a  sufficient 
addition  thereto ;  and  such  of  the  Trustees  as 
were  also  vestrymen,  were  desired  to  recommend 
this  measure  to  the  vestry.  And  that  appears  to 
have  been  done  accordingly  ;  for  on  the  7th  of 
January,  1754,  the  Trustees  informed  Dr.  Johnson 
by  letter,  that  the  vestry  of  Trinity  Church  had 
agreed  to  call  him  as  an  assistant  minister.  In 
his  answer,  dated  February  llth,  1754,  he  nei- 
ther accepts  nor  rejects  the  proposal,  but  requires 
further  time  to  consider  of  the  matter.  Several 
letters  on  both  sides  followed,  and  it  seems  to 
have  been  with  some  reluctance  that  Dr.  John- 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  17 

son  finally  consented  to  gratify  the  earnest  wish 
of  the  Trustees,  who  refused  to  think  of  any  other 
than  himself  as  their  President.  He  came  to 
New- York,  therefore,  but  by  way  of  trial  only, 
in  the  month  of  April  following ;  and  though  he 
entered  about  three  months  afterwards  on  the 
duties  of  the  presidency,  yet.  "  he  would  not  abso- 
lutely accept  of  it  until  the  charter  should  be 
passed,  and  he  could  see  what  kind  of  college  it 
was  likely  to  prove."*  Dr.  Johnson  was  at  this 
time  in  the  58th  year  of  his  age.  He  had  been 
for  above  thirty  years  the  faithful  missionary  at 
Stratford,  in  Connecticut,  of  the  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel,  and  since  at  the  period 
of  his  becoming  such  "  there  was  not  another 
Episcopal  clergyman  in  all  the  colony,  it  may  be 
easily  imagined  that  he  laboured  under  great  dis- 
couragements at  first  among  a  people  who  either 
would  not,  or  could  not,  at  that  time  make  the 
proper  distinction  between  episcopacy  and  pope- 
ry. His  prudence,  however,  and  persevering 
goodness  of  temper  had  so  prevailed  that  he  was 
now  beloved  by  his  dissenting  neighbours  them- 
selves, who  had  frequent  recourse  to  him  in  their 
difficulties,  as  to  one  of  their  own  clergy."t 

His  sound  judgment,  his  great  and  varied 

*  Chandler's  Life  of  Johnson,  p.  89. 

t  Preface  by  Dr.  Smith  to  Dr.  Johnson's  '•  Element's  of  Phi- 
losophy." 


18  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

acquirements,  his  amiable  temper,  his  moral 
worth  and  piety,  his  zealous  devotion  to  the  in- 
terests of  learning  and  religion,  together  with 
the  remarkable  circumstances  of  his  earlier  life, 
detailed  in  the  interesting  narrative  of  his  friend 
and  pupil,  Dr.  Chandler — all  this  had,  for  a 
long  time,  fixed  on  him  the  favourable  notice 
and  high  estimation  of  the  public.  Eleven  years 
before  his  appointment  to  the  presidency,  he  had 
received  the  degree  of  Doctor  in  Divinity  from 
the  University  of  Oxford  ;  a  high  distinction  at 
that  period,  as,  indeed,  from  that  learned  body,  it 
has  ever  been  esteemed.  He  seems  to  have  been 
regarded  by  the  dignified  clergy  of  England 
who  were  in  correspondence  with  him,  as  repre- 
senting, in  a  great  degree,  their  church  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  he  had  been  consulted 
with,,  and  looked  to  here,  as  the  president  of  their 
choice,  by  the  projectors,  both  of  the  Philadelphia 
and  the  New- York  college.  Dr.  Franklin's  soli- 
citude that  he  should  take  charge  of  the  former, 
might  suffice  to  show  that  he  was  not  regarded 
as  a  bigot ;  but,  indeed,  his  whole  conduct  proved 
that  in  his  endeavours  to  advance  the  general 
interests  of  science  and  religion,  he  rose  above  all 
narrow  prejudices,  and  mere  sectarian  views. 
Warmly  as  he  was  attached  to  his  own  church, 
and  widely  as  he  differed  on  many  points  of 
doctrine  and  discipline  from  Yale  College,  yet 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  19 

was  it  in  consequence  of  his  suggestions,  and 
through  his  interest,  that  a  very  valuable  contri- 
bution of  books  was  made  by  Berkeley  and  his 
friends  to  the  library  of  that  institution,  and  that 
the  Dean  afterwards  conveyed  to  it,  by  a  deed 
transmitted  to  Dr.  Johnson,  his  Rhode  Island 
farm,  for  the  establishment  of  that  Dearts  Boun- 
ty, to  which  sound  classical  learning  in  Connec- 
ticut has  been  much  indebted. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Trustees  on  the  16th  of 
May,  1754,  about  a  month  after  Dr.  Johnson's 
removal  to  town,  was  read  a  draft  of  the  pro- 
posed charter ;  against  which  Mr.  William 
Livingston  offered  a  formal  protest,  and  at  a  meet- 
ing four  days  after,  the  petition  of  the  Trustees 
to  the  Lieutenant  Governor  for  this  charter 
being  read,  was  approved  by  all  present,  except 
again  Mr.  Livingston,  who  protested  against  it 
for  twenty  reasons,  which  he  stated  at  great 
length.  The  substance  of  them,  however,  might 
be  comprehended  in  few  words,  and  may  easily 
be  gathered  from  what  has  been  already  said. 
The  Trustees  proceeded  in  their  application  with- 
out regard  to  them ;  and,  in  anticipation  of  the 
more  formal  establishment  of  their  college,  gave 
public  notice  of  an  examination  of  candidates  for 
admission,  to  be  held  during  the  first  week  of  the 
following  July,  and  on  the  17th  of  that  month, 
Dr.  Johnson  began,  in  the  vestry-room  of  the 


20  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

school-house  belonging  to  Trinity  Church,  his 
instruction  of  the  eight  students  who  were  admit- 
ted at  this  first  examination.  These  were,  Sa- 
muel Verplanck,  Rudolph  Ritzema,  Philip  Van 
Oortlandt,  Robert  Bayard,  Samuel  Provoost, 
Thomas  Marston,  Henry  Cruger,  and  Joshua 
Bloomer  ;  and  whoever  has  an  old  acquaintance 
with  our  city,  will  recognize  among  them  several 
familiar  and  respected  names. 

/The  royal  charter  constituting  King's  College, 
passed  the  seals,  as  was  previously  mentioned, 
on  the  31st  of  October,  1754;  but  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  college  under  it  cannot  be  considered 
as  having  taken  place  before  the  7th  of  May, 
1755,  when,  at  a  meeting  of  above  twenty  of  the 
gentlemen  named  in  it  as  Governors,  Mr.  Golds  - 
brow  Banyar,  Deputy  Secretary  of  the  province, 
attending  with  the  charter,  the  Lieutenant  Gov- 
ernor, James  De  Lancey,  after  a  suitable  address, 
delivered  it  to  the  gentlemen  present,  and  Mr. 
Horsmanden,  one  of  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  qualified  them  as  Governors  by  adminis- 
tering the  oaths  by  law  required  to  be  taken. 
After  which  Mr.  Chambers,  who  presided  at  this 
meeting,  in  a  reply  to  the  Lieutenant  Governor, 
on  behalf  of  the  Governors  of  the  college,  ex- 
pressed most  grateful  acknowledgments  for  the 
honour  he  had  been  pleased  to  confer  on  them  in 
their  appointment,  and  hoped  their  conduct,  as 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  21 

Governors  of  that  corporation,  would  always 
merit  the  continuance  of  his  honour's  protection, 
favor,  and  countenance,  and  convince  the  world 
that  they  had  nothing  more  at  heart  than  to  pro- 
mote th  e  glory  of  God,  the  true  Protestant  reli- 
gion, and  a  generous  education  of  their  youth  in 
the  liberal  arts  arid  sciences. 

"  We  may  gather  whence  arose  this  delay  of 
above  six  months,  between  the  date  and  the 
delivery  of  the  charter,  from  a  letter  written  by 
Dr.  Johnson  to  Bishop  Sherlock,  on  the  very 
day  of  such  delivery,  in  which  he  says,  "  I  hum- 
bly thank  your  Lordship  for  the  most  kind  regard 
you  express  towards  me,  in  view  of  my  under- 
taking the  care  of  this  young  college,  which  I 
hope  will  live  in  spite  of  the  most  virulent  oppo- 
sition it  meets  with.  The  charter  at  last  passed 
the  seals  in  October,  while  I  was  returned  into 
the  country.  But  the  clamour  was  so  great,  that 
there  were  some  alterations  in  the  draught  after 
I  went  away,  for  which  I  was  very  sorry,  and 
particularly  that  the  Bishop  of  London  was  left 
out  from  being  one  of  the  Governors."  "  I  was 
in  great  doubt  whether  to  accept  the  presidency : 
but  as  I  saw  that  it  would  come  to  nothing  if  I 
did  not,  I  at  length  returned  and  accepted  the 
charge.  Mr.  Beach  has  concluded  to  succeed  me 
at  Stratford ;  so  I  am  settled  here  in  New-York, 
being  also  lecturer  in  Trinity  Church." 


22  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

The  charter,  when  delivered,  named  as  gov- 
ernors of  the  College,  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, and  the  first  Lord  Commissioner  for  trade 
and  plantations,  who  were  empowered  to  act  by 
proxy,  the  Lieutenant  Governor  and  Commander- 
in-chief  of  the  Province  of  New  York,  the  eldest 
Councillor  of  the  Province,  the  Judges  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  Judicature  of  the  Province,  the 
Secretary,  the  Attorney  General,  the  Speaker  of 
the  General  Assembly,  and  the  Treasurer  of  the 
Province,  the  Mayor  of  the  City  of  New- York, 
the  Rector  of  Trinity  Church,  the  Senior  Minis- 
ter of  the  Reformed  Protestant  Dutch  Church, 
the  Ministers  of  the  Ancient  Lutheran  Church, 
of  the  French  Church,  and  of  the  Presbyterian 
Congregation  in  the  City  of  New- York,  and  the 
President  of  the  college — all  these  ex  qfficio,  and 
together  with  them  four  and  twenty  of  the  prin- 
cipal gentlemen  of  the  city,  who  were  :  Archibald 
Kennedy,  Joseph  Murray,  Josiah  Martin,  Paul 
Richard,  Henry  Cruger,  William  Walton,  John 
Watts,  Henry  Beekman,  Philip  Ver  Planck, 
Frederick  Philipse,  Joseph  Robinson,  John  Cru- 
ger, Oliver  De  Lancey,  James  Livingston,  Esqrs., 
Benjamin  Nicoll,  William  Livingston,  Joseph 
Read,  Nathaniel  Marston,  Joseph  Haynes,  John 
Livingston,  Abraham  Lodge,  David  Clarkson, 
Leonard  Lispenard,  and  James  De  Lancey,  the 
younger.  Gentlemen. 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  23 

The  college  being  now  incorporated,  and  capa- 
ble of  holding  the  land  previously  destined  for  it 
by  Trinity  Church,  and  mentioned  in  its  charter, 
at  the  next  meeting  of  the  governors,  on  the  13th 
of  May,  1755,  the  corporation  of  Trinity  Church 
delivered  to  them  deeds  of  conveyance  of  a  piece 
of  land  described  therein  as  situate  on  the  west 
side  of  the  Broadway,  in  the  west  ward  of  the 
City  of  New- York,  fronting  easterly  to  Church- 
street,  between  Barclay-street  and  Murray-street, 
four  hundred  and  forty  feet,  and  thence  running 
westerly  along  Barclay-street  and  Murray-street, 
to  the  North  River. 

The  mention  of  these  familiar  names  of  now 
well-built  streets,  as  boundaries  of  the  land  grant- 
ed to  the  college,  must  not  be  allowed  to  convey 
an  erroneous  idea  of  the  condition  of  its  neigh- 
bourhood at  the  date  of  this  conveyance ;  for  eight 
years  after  that,  on  the  10th  of  May,  1763,  we  find 
the  governors  appointed  a  committee  to  enclose 
the  college  ground  with  a  fence  of  posts  and  rails, 
and  near  six  years  later  still,  on  the  24th  of  No- 
vember, 1768,  Mr.  Watts,  Colonel  De  Lancey, 
and  Mr.  Lispenard,  are  named  as  a  committee 
"  to  lay  out  and  pave  the  one-half  of  the  streets 
that  divide  the  lands  of  the  College  and  those 
belonging  to  Trinity  Church."  These  streets, 
probably,  like  those  of  many  lithograph  cities  of 
recent  date,  existed  only  upon  paper. 


24  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

The  conditions  of  this  gift  to  the  college- 
conditions  which,  being  inserted  in  its  charter  also, 
afforded  pretext  for  the  furious  opposition  it  en- 
countered— were,  that  its  President  for  ever,  for 
the  time  being,  should  be  a  member  of  and  in 
communion  with  the  Church  of  England,  as  by 
law  established  ;  and  that  the  morning  and  eve- 
ning service  in  the  college  should  be  the  liturgy 
of  the  said  church,  or  such  a  collection  of  prayers 
out  of  that  liturgy,  together  with  a  collect  pecu- 
liar for  the  college,  as  should  be  approved  by  its 
president  and  governors. 

All  who  have  any  acquaintance  with  our 
college,  or  its  history,  will  know  how  wholly  un- 
founded has  proved  the  inference  from  those  con- 
ditions, that  towards  students  who  happened  to 
belong  to  the  communion  of  which  its  president 
was  required  to  be,  the  slightest  preference  or 
favor  would  on  that  account  be  shown. 

The  charter,  indeed,  expressly  denied  to  the 
college  the  power  of  making  any  laws  or  regu- 
lations tending  "to  exclude  any  person  of  any 
religious  denomination  whatever,  from  equal 
liberty  and  advantage  of  education,  or  from  any 
of  the  degrees,  liberties,  privileges,  benefits,  and 
immunities  of  said  College,  on  account  of  his 
particular  tenets  in  matters  of  religion." 

To  show  how  little  the  conditions,  which 
exposed  the  college  to  so  much  obloquy,  were 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  25 

considered  at  the  time,  by  dispassionate  men,  as 
stamping  the  institution  with  any  bigoted  or 
exclusive  character,  it  may  suffice  to  state  the 
very  first  act  arid  proceeding  of  its  Governors. 

At  their  first  meeting1  on  the  7th  of  May,  1755, 
after  the  acceptance  of  the  charter,  the  speech 
of  the  Lieutenant  Governor,  and  the  reply  of 
Mr.  Chambers,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ritzema,  senior 
minister  of  the  Reformed  Protestant  Dutch 
Church,  among  other  things  addressed  by  him  to 
the  Lieutenant  Governor,  remarked  that  he  was 
sorry  to  have  observed  the  differences  and  ani- 
mosities in  the  Province  touching  several  restric- 
tions in  the  charter.  He  expressed  his  hope  that 
some  means  might  be  fallen  upon  to  heal  them  ; 
and  his  belief  that  it  would  conduce  greatly  to 
that  end  if  his  Honour  would  be  pleased  to  grant, 
either  by  addition  to  the  charter,  or  in  such 
other  manner  as  should  be  thought  most  proper, 
that  there  should  be  established  in  the  college  a 
professor  of  divinity,  for  the  education  of  such  of 
the  youth  of  their  church  as  might  be  intended  for 
the  ministry,  with  a  suitable  allowance  of  salary, 
and  to  be  chosen  by  the  consistory  of  that  church 
for  the  time  being.  The  Lieutenant  Governor, 
in  reply,  expressed  his  approval  of  Mr.  Ritzema's 
suggestion,  and  his  willingness  to  grant  any  ap- 
plication in  accordance  with  it  that  the  Governors 
might  address  to  him.  The  Governors  at  once, 
2 


26  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

unanimously  adopted  Mr.  Ritzema's  proposal, 
and  appointed  a  committee  to  prepare  their  peti- 
tion accordingly  ;  which  being  reported  at  their 
next  meeting  and  approved,  the  same  committee 
was  directed  to  present  it.  and  at  the  meeting 
after,  on  the  3d  of  June,  Mr.  Banyar,  Deputy  Sec- 
retary of  the  Province,  delivered  to  the  Governors 
his  Majesty's  additional  charter,  making  provision 
for  the  establishment  of  a  professor  in  divinity, 
according  to  the  doctrine,  discipline,  and  worship 
established  by  the  National  Synod  of  Dort. 

It  does  not  appear  what,  if  any,  further  steps 
were  taken  in  regard  to  this  professorship,  or  for 
its  actual  establishment.  Even  what  was  done 
seems  more  than  would  have  been  expected  un- 
der all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  and  to  re- 
quire some  explanation. 

Perhaps  the  promptitude  arid  unanimity  mani- 
fested by  the  Governors  on  this  occasion,  may 
have  arisen  partly  from  their  wish  to  defeat  a 
manoeuvre  of  their  skilful  and  persevering  antag- 
onist, Mr.  Livingston;  for  to  his  management  it 
was  probably  to  be  ascribed,  that,  about  six 
months  before  this,  on  the  25th  of  October,  1754, 
a  petition  of  the  ministers,  elders,  and  deacons  of 
the  Reformed  Protestant  Dutch  Church  in  the 
city  of  New- York,  was  presented  to  the  House 
of  Assembly,  stating  that  unless  provision  were 
made  in  the  intended  college  for  a  professor  of 


OF   COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  27 

divinity,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Dutch  Church  in 
this  country,  the  youth  of  that  church  intended 
for  the  ministry  would  be  obliged  to  reside  seve- 
ral years  in  Holland,  or  other  foreign  Protestant 
countries ;  alleging  that  as  the  Dutch  were  the 
most  numerous  of  any  single  denomination  of 
Christians  in  the  province,  they  might  reasonably 
be  expected,  in  all  provincial  contributions,  to  be 
the  greatest  benefactors  to  the  intended  college, 
and  praying  that  when  the  matter  of  the  college 
came  under  consideration,  they  might,  by  the  act 
incorporating  it,  be  entitled  to  a  Divinity  Profes- 
sor, with  a  reasonable  salary,  to  be  nominated  by 
the  ministers,  elders,  and  deacons  of  the  Dutch 
Reformed  Protestant  Church  in  the  city,  and  that 
the  said  professor  might  freely  and  without  con- 
trol teach  the  doctrines  of  faith  maintained  by 
their  churches,  as  established  and  approved  by 
the  National  Synod  of  Dort,  in  1618,  1619. 

On  this  petition  being  read,  "  it  was  ordered 
accordingly,"  by  the  House. 

Now,  what  seems  to  connect  this  proceeding 
with  Mr.  Livingston,  is,  not  only  the  probability 
there  was,  (and  on  which,  as  we  shall  see,  he 
counted,)  that  it  would  embarrass  the  college,  by 
either  severing  it  in  some  degree  from  Trinity 
Church,  or  else  uniting  the  numerous  communion 
of  the  Dutch  against  it ;  but  also  the  circum- 
stance that  this  petition  was  presented  on  the 


28  AN   HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

same  day  on  which  the  assembly,  no  doubt  at 
Mr.  Livingston's  suggestion,  directed  the  trustees 
of  the  college  fund  to  render  their  account — an 
order  preparatory  to  the  proceedings  mentioned 
previously  as  having  taken  place  about  the  be- 
ginning of  November,  1754.  And  a  still  further 
proof  of  the  agency  of  Mr.  Livingston  in  this  af- 
fair, is,  that  in  a  letter  written  seven  days  before 
this  petition  was  presented,  he  speaks  of  it,  and 
anticipates  its  good  effect,  whether  granted  or 
rejected  ;  as  in  the  one  case  securing  to  the  Dutch 
a  Calvinistic  professor,  and  diminishing  the 
badge  of  distinction  to  which  the  Episcopalians 
so  zealously  aspired,  or,  in  the  other,  animating 
the  Dutch  against  those  sticklers  for  a  party 
college,  who  would  have  caused  its  failure. 

If,  then,  this  petition  of  the  Dutch  church  was 
ascribed  by  the  Governors  to  Mr.  Livingston's 
contrivance,  their  ready  acquiescence  in  Mr.  Ritz- 
ema's  proposal  may  be  easily  accounted  for; 
and  was  wisely  calculated  to  wrest  from  the 
hands  of  their  antagonist  the  means  of  annoy- 
ance which  he  had  counted  on,  and  to  render 
nugatory  his  design.  This  is  the  probable  ex- 
planation to  be  given  of  a  measure  which,  (how- 
ever proper  in  itself  it  may  have  been,)  one  would 
not  have  anticipated  as  the  very  first  of  a  corpo- 
ration projected,  constituted,  and  endowed,  as 
was  King's  College. 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  29 

This  zealous,  persevering,  and  powerful  oppo- 
sition of  Mr.  Livingston  to  King's  College,  arose, 
no  doubt,  principally  from  his  dread  of  whatever 
seemed  to  have  the  slightest  tendency  towards  a 
legal  establishment  of  the  English  church  within 
the  colonies.  Hostility  to  learning  certainly  can- 
not be  imputed  to  him,  for  he  was  not  only  one 
of  the  best  educated  men  in  the  province,  but 
showed  himself  solicitous  to  promote  the  cause  of 
letters.  About  seven  months  before  the  granting 
of  the  college  charter,  we  find  him  associated 
with  his  brother  Philip,  his  brother-in-law  Mr. 
Alexander,  (afterwards  Lord  Stirling,)  Mr.  Scott, 
and  others,  in  founding  the  Society  Library  of 
New- York. 

If  we  inquire,  now,  into  the  ground  of  Mr. 
Livingston's  apprehensions,  it  is  undeniable  that 
the  greater  part  of  the  Governors  of  the  college, 
as  also  of  the  gentlemen  chiefly  instrumental  in 
originating  the  design  of  such  an  institution,  and 
in  forwarding  its  establishment,  were  attached  to 
the  Church  of  England.  ^  No  one  who  knows  the 
character  of  Dr.  Johnson,  and  the  history  of  his 
earlier  life,  can  doubt  that  he  regarded  the  insti- 
tution he  was  persuaded  to  take  charge  of,  as 
one  intended  to  promote  the  cause  not  only  of 
learning  but  of  religion,  and  of  that  church,  un- 
der the  control  of  which,  in  some  degree,  it  had 
been  placed.  From  the  letters  of  Bishop  Sher- 


30  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

lock  and  Archbishop  Seeker  to  Dr.  Johnson,  it  is 
plain  that  they  also  viewed  the  matter  in  this 
light.  The  moneys  subscribed  in  England  to- 
wards the  college,  were  contributed  expressly  as 
for  "the  increase  and  prosperity  of  the  Church 
of  England."  Finally,  Trinity  Church,  in  contri- 
buting so  largely  towards  the  endowment  of  the 
college,  and  by  the  conditions  of  her  grant,  meant, 
undoubtedly,  that  the  college  should  (as  was  al- 
together reasonable)  be  connected  in  preference 
with  the  church  to  which  it  owed  in  so  great  a 
measure  its  support ;  and  when  it  gave  its  first 
instructions  in  the  vestry  room  of  Trinity  Church, 
it  was  rightly,  and  of  course,  regarded  as  an  in- 
stitution founded  and  fostered  especially  by  that 
church.  These  are  facts,  which,  even  if  they 
were  (as  assuredly  they  are  not)  opprobrious  and 
injurious  to  the  character  of  the  college,  its  histo- 
rian could  not,  if  he  would,  deny.  But  what 
does  all  this  prove,  except  that  our  college  had  at 
its  origin — what  every  seat  of  learning  ought  to 
have,  and  to  retain — a  distinct  religious  charac- 
ter. There  was  nothing  about  it,  however,  of 
exclusiveness  or  intolerance.  When  originally 
opened,  and  previous  to  the  granting  of  its  char- 
ter, the  plan  of  its  trustees  was  declared  to  be 
"  extensive  and  generous,  aiming  at  the  general 
good  of  all  denominations  of  people  in  the  pro- 
vince." The  charter,  and  the  Governors  who 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  31 

took  charge  under  it,  had  no  intention,  and  made 
no  attempt,  to  narrow  this  original  plan,  and  it  is 
one  to  which  the  administration  of  the  college, 
however  designated,  ever  has  been,  and  is  now, 
conformed. 

If  our  college  were  situated  in  a  small  town, 
and  its  students  lived  within  its  walls,  then 
should  we  regard  as  indispensable,  in  order  that 
religion  might  hold  its  due  place  in  the  education 
of  our  youth,  that  its  religious  character  should 
be  distinctly  marked — that  it  should  belong  not 
exclusively,  but  in  especial  manner  and  avow- 
edly, to  some  one  denomination — should  be  what 
is  invidiously  styled  sectarian.  Nor  would  this 
form  any  objection  against  it  with  the  wise  and 
pious  President  of  a  sister  institution,  who  ob- 
serves that  "  in  this  country,  where  we  have  no 
established  church,  it  is  difficult  to  define  a  secta- 
rian, unless  it  be  a  man  who  differs  from -us  in 
religious  sentiments.  So  that  in  fact,  with  the 
exception  of  a  few  who  have  no  opinions  or  care 
on  this  subject,  we  are  all  sectarians,  and  to 
exclude  sectarianism  from  a  literary  institution, 
is  to  exclude  all  religion  from  it.  And  such  is 
usually  the  result,  when  it  attempts  so  to  trim 
its  course  as  to  suit  all  parties.  But  really,  of  all 
kinds  of  intolerance,  that  is  the  worst,  which  is 
furious  for  toleration,  and  that  the  worst  kind  of 
sectarianism  which  is  fierce  for  irreligion.  The 


32  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

only  truly  liberal  and  manly  course  for  an  insti- 
tution to  adopt,  is  openly  to  avow  its  creed.  Such 
a  course  does  indeed  make  the  institution  secta- 
rian, that  is,  it  shows  a  preference  for  some  par- 
ticular system  of  religion,  but  it  is  an  honest 
course,  and  the  only  honest  course  that  can  be 
taken."* — At  the  same  time,  the  peculiar  religious 
opinions  of  students,  whatever  they  may  be. 
should  not,  in  the  award  of  literary  honours,  be 
regarded,  nor  suifered  to  exercise  the  slightest 
influence.  All  of  all  denominations  should  stand 
here  on  even  ground,  and  "  in  this  respect  the 
motto  of  the  ancient  Tyrian  queen  should  be 
adopted  by  every  teacher  :" 

"  Tros  Tyriusque  mihi  nullo  discrimine  agetur." 

But  this  liberal  allowance  to  others,  of  a  free- 
dom of  opinion  which  we  claim  for  ourselves,  is 
not  to  be  confounded  with,  nor  to  become  a  care- 
less indifference,  and  we  should  not  seek  the 
praise  of  enlightened  toleration  at  the  expense  of 
any  timid  compromises  in  religion.  The  minds 
of  serious  men  seem  to  be  every  where  awaken- 
ing now,  to  a  conviction  of  the  great  importance 
of  laying  the  foundation  of  human  learning  in 
religion.  The  alarming  results  to  which  the 
statistics  of  crime  in  some  countries  recently  have 
led — the  fact  that  the  frequency  and  enormity 

*  President  Hitchcock's  Inaugural  Address,  at  Amherst  Col.  p.  37. 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  33 

of  crimes  have  been  found  in  direct  proportion  to 
the  illumination  of  the  people,  wherever  the 
lights  from  which  it  was  derived,  instead  of 
being  kindled  on  the  altars  of  religion,  flowed 
from  the  false  glare  of  infidel  philosophy,  or 
mere  worldly  wisdom: — these  startling  facts 
have  of  late  drawn  forth  acknowledgments  from 
various  quarters,  of  the  high  importance  of  train- 
ing up  youth,  not  in  science  and  letters  only,  but 
in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord — of 
the  great  necessity  of  teaching  them  religion, 
arid  the  impossibility  of  doing  so  upon  the  plan 
of  those  who  either  have  not  any  clear  and  well 
defined  religious  faith,  or  else  want  the  courage 
to  proclaim  it. 

To  this  our  college,  at  its  origin,  no  such  fal- 
tering could  be  charged  ;  nor,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  it  ever  administered  in  a  spirit  of  intolerance. 
As  additional  proof  of  the  liberal  views  which 
governed  in  the  first  regulations  of  King's  College, 
it  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  at  the  same  meeting 
at  which  the  deeds  of  conveyance  were  received 
from  Trinity  Church,  a  committee  being  appoint- 
ed to  prepare  a  device  for  the  seal  of  the  college, 
a  proper  collection  of  prayers  for  its  use,  and  a 
body  of  laws  for  its  government,  there  were 
placed  on  this  committee,  together  with  the  Rec- 
tor of  Trinity  Church,  the  ministers  of  the  Dutch, 
the  Lutheran,  and  the  French  churches  also, 
2* 


34  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

who  were  Mr.  Ritzema,  Mr.  Weygand,  and  Mr. 
Carle.  These  three  gentlemen,  indeed,  and  es- 
pecially Mr.  Ritzema,  from  their  frequent  attend- 
ance at  the  meetings  of  the  Governors,  and  their 
active  participation  in  the  business  of  the  col- 
lege, appear  to  have  taken  a  lively  interest  in 
its  welfare. 

At  a  meeting  on  the  3d  of  June,  1755,  was 
adopted  the  device  prepared  by  Dr.  Johnson  for 
the  seal  of  King's  College,  and  which  continues 
to  be  that  of  Columbia  College,  with  only  the 
necessary  alteration  of  its  name.  The  descrip- 
tion given  of  this  device  deserves  notice  as  show- 
ing how  deservedly  pre-eminent  a  place  religion 
held  in  education,  according  to  the  ideas  of  those 
who  laid  the  foundations  of  our  discipline.* 

At  this  same  meeting  in  June  a  commit- 
tee was  appointed  to  prepare  addresses  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  first  Lord  Com- 
missioner of  Trade  and  Plantations,  the  Bishop 
of  London,  and  the  Society  for  the  Propagation 
of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,  soliciting  aid 
towards  the  establishment  of  the  college.  It  was 
resolved  to  send  a  person  to  England  with  these 

*  It  was,  indeed,  with  a  view  chiefly  to  religion  that  all  the 
earlier  literary  institutions  of  our  country  were  established.  This 
was  true  especially  of  Harvard,  William  and  Mary,  Yale,  and 
Princeton  colleges,  as  is  shown  by  the  Rev.  Di.  Alva  Woods, 
in  his  Valedictory  Address  to  the  University  of  Alabama,  p.  34. 


OF    COLUMBIA   COLLEGE-  35 

addresses,  and  the  Lieutenant  Governor,  and 
other  members  of  the  corporation  were  desired  to 
recommend  this  messenger  and  his  object,  in 
private  letters  to  their  friends.  It  was  resolved, 
also,  to  apply  to  the  West  India  Islands  for  as- 
sistance, and  to  open  a  subscription  in  the  city  of 
New- York.  It  was  not,  however,  till  about  three 
years  after  (May  9th,  1758)  that  these  addresses 
were  prepared  and  sent ;  and  at  a  still  later  pe- 
riod, the  16th  of  November,  1762,  additional  ad- 
dresses were  ordered  to  the  universities  of  Ox- 
ford and  Cambridge,  the  Royal  Society,  the  An- 
tiquary Society,  the  Society  for  the  Encourage- 
ment of  Arts,  Manufactures,  and  Commerce,  and 
others.  Several  of  these  addresses  (as  that  to  all 
Patrons  of  Learning  and  Knowledge,  and  Friends 
of  the  British  Empire  in  America)  lay  stress  on 
the  importance  of  establishing  a  public  seminary 
of  learning  "  in  this  remote  and  uncultivated 
part  of  the  world,  where  ignorance  too  generally 
prevails." 

The  Governors,  in  their  letter  recommending 
all  these  addresses  to  Dr.  Bearcroft's  care,  allude 
to  the  loss  of  one-half  of  the  moneys  raised  by 
public  lotteries  for  the  benefit  of  the  College,  in 
consequence  of  the  violent  opposition  it  had  met 
with  from  the  enemies  of  the  church. 

Dr.  James  Jay,  being  at  this  time  about  to 
sail  for  England,  on  business  of  his  own,  and 


36  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

offering  to  take  upon  himself  the  charge  of  so- 
liciting and  collecting  contributions  for  the  col- 
lege, received  the  instructions  of  the  Governors 
accordingly,  and  they  united  with  him  in  this 
commission  Alderman  Trecothick,  and  Moses 
Franks,  merchants  of  London,  and  Robert 
Charles,  the  agent  of  the  Province. 

Dr.  Jay,  on  his  arrival  in  England,  found 
there  Dr.  Smith,  Provost  of  the  college  in  Phila- 
delphia, soliciting  aid  for  that  institution,  and  as 
it  was  thought  by  Archbishop  Seeker,  and  others 
who  were  friendly  to  both  seminaries,  that  to  at- 
tempt separate  collections  would  prove  injurious 
to  both,  a  brief  was  obtained  in  favor  of  the  two 
together.  They  made  their  collection,  therefore, 
jointly,  and  it  produced  to  King's  College  a  net 
sum  of  near  six  thousand  pounds  sterling.  The 
king  gave,  independently  of  this  joint  collection, 
four  hundred  pounds  to  the  college  of  New- 
York,  and  half  that  sum  to  the  Philadelphia  col- 
lege ;  referring  the  latter  to  Mr.  Penn  as  its  proper 
patron. 

King's  College  had  previously  received  £3282, 
as  its  moiety  of  the  moneys  raised  by  lottery — a 
considerable  amount  subscribed  by  its  friends  in 
New-York — £500  sterling  from  the  Society  for 
the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel — about  £1000  ster- 
ling from  Mr.  Edward  Antill — a  bequest  of  £500 
from  Mr.  Paul  Richard — one  of  £100  from  Mr. 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  37 

James  Alexander — and  from  Mr.  Joseph  Mur- 
ray property  worth  about  £8000,  including  his 
library.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Bristowe,  of  London,  also, 
having  bequeathed  his  library  of  about  1500  vol- 
umes to  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel,  "  to  be  sent  to  the  College  of  New- York,  of 
which  Dr.  Johnson  is  President,  or  to  such  other 
place  or  places  as  the  Society  shall  direct,"  the 
Society  gave  it  to  the  College  of  New- York. 

Among  the  subscribers  were  many  of  the 
Governors  appointed  by  the  Charter,  who  contri- 
buted from  fifty  to  two  hundred  pounds  apiece  ; 
and  besides  Sir  Charles  Hardy,  whose  subscrip- 
tion of  £500  has  been  already  mentioned,  Gene- 
ral Shirley  gave  one  hundred,  and  General  Monk- 
ton  two  hundred  pounds. 

In  this  manner  were  obtained,  from  time  to 
time,  during  the  first  eight  or  nine  years  of  the 
existence  of  the  College,  the  means  of  its  support. 
From  the  land  belonging  to  it,  around  the  col- 
lege enclosure,  it  could  not,  at  that  period,  have 
derived  any  rent  worth  mentioning.  Even  in 
April,  1785,  we  find  a  committee  of  the  Regents 
stating  "  that  if  the  college  lots  were  let  out  to 
the  best  advantage,  they  would  bring  in  per  an- 
num about  £250." 

With  a  view  to  comprehend  this  whole  sub- 
ject of  the  college  funds  under  one  head,  we  have 
anticipated  several  years,  and  now  go  back  to  the 


38  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

summer  of  1756,  when  the  Governors,  having 
provided  for  other  exigencies  of  the  College,  pro- 
ceeded to  erect  a  building  for  its  accommodation. 
The  plan  for  this  having,  in  compliment  to  Sir 
Charles  Hardy,  been  submitted  to  him,  and  hav- 
ing received  his  approbation,  was  adopted  by  the 
Governors  on  the  13th  of  July,  1756 ;  and  on  the 
23d  of  the  following  month  the  first  stone  was 
laid  by  Sir  Charles  Hardy,  and  the  President  ad- 
dressed the  Governors  of  the  College,  Sir  Charles 
Hardy,  and  the  Lieutenant  Governor,  Mr.  De 
Lancey,  in  a  brief  Latin  speech,  congratulating 
them  on  this  happy  event,  which  had  succeeded 
almost  beyond  expectation  "  Per  varios  casus  et 
tot  discrimina  rerurn." 

The  inscription  on  this  first  stone,  which  is 
beneath  the  south-east  corner  of  the  central  or 
older  portion  of  the  college  building,  is  as  fol- 
lows : — 

Hujus  Collegii,  Regalis  dicti,  Regio 

Diplomate  constituti  in  Honorem 

Dei  O.  M.  atq:  in  Ecclesise  Reiq:  Publics 

Emolumentum,  primum  hunc  lapidem 

posuit  Vir   prsecellentissimus,  Carolus 

Hardy,  Eques  Auratus,  hujus  Provincise 

Praefectus  dignissimus.    Augu.  die  23°. 

An.  Dom.  MDCCLVI. 

Not  long  previous  to  this  interesting  ceremony 
Dr.  Johnson  had  a  letter  from  Dr.  Bearcroft,  Sec- 


OF   COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  39 

retary  of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel,  stating  that  the  Society,  discouraged  by 
the  ill-success  of  its  repeated  endeavours  to  con- 
vert to  Christianity  Indians  of  adult  age,  had  de- 
termined to  attempt  the  education  of  their  chil- 
dren, in  the  hope  that  if  trained  up  in  the  right 
way  of  salvation,  through  the  divine  blessing 
they  might  persevere  therein.  Dr.  Bearcroft  goes 
on  to  say  that  the  Society,  very  desirous  of  pro- 
ceeding in  this  momentous  matter,  had  directed 
him  to  inquire  of  Dr.  Johnson  whether,  and  upon 
what  terms,  a  number  of  Indian  children  might 
be  received  into  the  college,  to  be  there  main- 
tained, and  instructed  in  the  Christian  religion, 
under  his  care  and  direction,  at  the  expense  of 
the  Society.  Dr.  Johnson,  in  reply,  states  that 
Mr.  Barclay  and  he  had  written  to  Mr.  Ogilvie, 
the  Society's  missionary  to  the  Mohawks,  to 
sound  the  disposition  of  the  Indians,  and  see 
whether  any  lads  could  be  procured  to  accept  of 
the  Society's  charitable  offer ;  and  that  until  they 
heard  from  Mr.  Ogilvie  they  could  say  nothing 
further  on  the  subject.  Nor  do  we  find  any 
mention  of  it  afterwards. 

During  the  year  1755,  a  second  class  having 
been  admitted  into  college,  an  additional  instruct- 
or became  indispensable,  and  Mr.  Wm.  John- 
son, A.  M.,  a  young  gentleman  who  had  received 
his  education  at  Yale  College,  was  appointed  to 


40  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

the  place  which  had  been  originally  offered  to 
Mr.  Whittlesey.  Mr.  Johnson,  after  holding  his 
office  for  about  a  year,  went  to  England  to  take 
orders,  and  Mr.  Leonard  Cutting,  of  Pembroke 
Hall,  Cambridge,  a  thorough-bred  classical  schol- 
ar, was  in  1756  appointed  in  his  stead. 

In  November  of  the  following  year,  1757,  Dr. 
Johnson  was  driven  from  New- York  by  the 
small-pox,  and  remained  in  the  adjacent  county 
of  Westchester  for  above  a  year,  amidst  the  con- 
gregation of  which  his  son  William  was  to  have 
taken  charge,  had  he  not,  a  most  amiable  and 
promising  young  man,  within  seven  months  after 
his  departure  from  New- York,  and  very  soon 
after  taking  holy  orders  in  England,  been  cut  of^ 
by  that  fearful  disease  from  which  Dr.  Johnson 
was  now  flying  with  his  family — a  disease  of 
which  (probably  because  of  the  bereavements 
which  in  early  life  his  friendship  had  sustained 
from  it)  he  entertained  such  dread,  that  he  ac- 
cepted the  presidency  of  King's  College,  and  re- 
moved to  New- York,  only  under  the  condition 
"  that  he  should  be  allowed  to  retire  to  some  place 
of  safety  out  of  town  when  the  small-pox  pre- 
vailed."* 

Although  when  Dr.  Johnson  retired  from  the 
city  there  were  not  above  thirty  students  alto- 
gether in  the  then  three  classes,  yet,  Mr.  Cutting 

*  Dr.  Johnson's  Autograph  Memoir  of  his  Life,  p.  36. 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  41 

being  unequal  to  the  care  of  all,  the  Governors, 
on  the  8th  of  November,  1757,  appointed  Mr. 
Treadwell,  a  young  gentleman  of  excellent  char- 
acter, educated  at  Harvard  College,  and  recom- 
mended by  Professor  Winthrop  as  eminently 
qualified  for  the  station,  to  be  professor  of  Mathe- 
matics and  Natural  Philosophy ;  and  to  aid  his 
instructions  an  apparatus  of  instruments  for 
teaching  Experimental  Philosophy  was  imported 
from  Europe.  It  was  made  a  part  of  Mr.  Tread- 
well's  duty  to  teach  also  the  Latin  and  Greek 
languages  to  the  two  younger  classes. 

Dr.  Johnson  returned  to  the  city,  and  to  his 
more  immediate  care  of  the  college,  in  March, 
1758 ;  and  on  the  2lst  of  June  following,  was 
held  the  first  commencement ;  at  which  the  de- 
gree of  Bachelor  of  Arts  was  conferred  on  eight 
students,  five  of  whom  were  of  the  number  of 
those  admitted  in  1754 — the  other  three  had  been 
educated  either  in  Philadelphia  or  at  Princeton. 
At  this  same  commencement  twelve  gentlemen, 
who  had  been  elsewhere  educated,  were  created 
Masters  of  Arts,  or,  holding  that  degree  already 
from  some  other  institution,  were  admitted  ad 
eundem. 

The  year  following,  there  was  no  public  com- 
mencement ;  but  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts 
was  conferred  on  two  candidates,  one  of  whom 
had  been  educated  at  Princeton,  and  the  other 


42  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

was,  out  of  six  admitted  in  1755,  the  only  one 
who  had  completed  his  four  years  of  study. 
The  remarks  made  in  the  Matricula  of  the  Col- 
lege respecting  those  who  entered  the  Freshman 
Class  together  with  him  are,  of  one,  that  he  "  in 
his  third  year  went  to  Philadelphia  College ;"  of 
another,  that  "about  the  middle  of  his  second 
year  he  went  into  the  army  ;"  of  another,  that  he 
"  after  three  years  went  to  merchandise ;"  of  the 
fourth,  that  "  after  about  two  years  he  went  to  pri- 
vateering ;"  and  of  the  fifth,  that  he  "  after  three 
years  went  to  nothing."  Similar  brief  remarks' are 
found  throughout  the  Matricula  of  King's  Col- 
lege, on  those  who  left  it  before  the  completion  of 
their  course.  One  "  left  College  in  his  second 
year,  having  behaved  very  indifferently."  An- 
other went  away  in  his  third  year,  "and  was  riot 
much  regretted."  And  of  another,  again,  we  find 
"  the  loss  regretted." 

In  October  of  this  year,  1759,  dread  of  the 
small-pox  again  drove  Dr.  Johnson  out  of  town, 
and  during  his  absence,  which  lasted  until  the 
month  of  May  following,  the  duties  of  the  Col- 
lege were,  for  a  time,  divided  between  Mr.  Cut- 
ting and  Professor  Treadwell ;  but  the  declining 
health  of  the  latter,  and  his  death  in  1760,  made 
it  necessary  to  seek  some  one  qualified  to  take 
his  place ;  and  such  an  one,  it  seems,  was  not  at 
that  period  easily  found.  During  the  interval  of 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  43 

about  eighteen  months  between  the  death  of  Pro- 
fessor Treadwell  and  the  appointment  of  his 
successor,  Mr.  Samuel  Giles  was  for  a  time  em- 
ployed as  an  instructor  in  Mathematics. 

In  February,  1760,  a  committee  was  appoint- 
ed to  write  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  arid 
such  other  persons  as  they  might  think  fit,  to 
procure  two  proper  persons  "  to  assist  the  Presi- 
dent in  carrying  on  the  education  and  instruction 
of  the  youth  of  the  College." 

This  resolution  of  the  Governors,  and  Dr. 
Johnson's  own  desire  to  provide  a  successor  to 
himself — some  one  on  whom  he  might  within  a 
few  years  at  farthest  devolve  the  duties  of  the 
presidency — gave  occasion  for  several  letters  on 
both  sides  between  him  and  Archbishop  Seeker, 
who  seems  to  have  taken  mudi  paj**3,  though  for 
a  long  time  without  success,  to  obtain  such^a^per- 
son  as  the  College  required. 

>  Meantime  the  College  building  had  been  so 
far  completed  that  the  officers  and  students  be- 
gan to  lodge  and  mess  there  in  May,  1760  ;  and 
on  the  26th  of  the  following  month  the  proces- 
sion proceeded  thence  to  St.  George's  Chapel  to 
hold  the  third  annual  commencement.  On  this 
occasion  the  President,  in  a  Latin  speech,  con- 
gratulated the  Governors  assembled  for  the  first 
time  in  the  College  Hall. 

The  building  thus  completed  was  that  older 


44  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

portion  of  the  present  college  edifice  which  is  con- 
tained between  the  wings.  It  constituted  one-third 
part  of  the  original  design,  and  in  the  minutes  of 
the  Governors  is  repeatedly  styled  the  north  side 
of  the  Colleg  e.  An  English  traveller  in  the  pro- 
vince at  that  period,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Burnaby,  re- 
marks, "  The  college  when  finished  will  be  ex- 
ceedingly handsome.  It  is  to  be  built  on  three 
sides  of  a  quadrangle  fronting  Hudson's  or  North 
River,  and  will  be  the  most  beautifully  situated 
of  any  college,  I  believe,  in  the  world.  At  pres- 
ent only  one  wing  is  finished,  which  is  of  stone, 
and  consists  of  twenty-four  sets  of  apartments, 
each  having  a  large  sitting-room  with  a  study 
and  bedchamber."  The  same  writer  speaks  of 
the  president  as  "  a  very  worthy  and  learned 
man  ;  but  rather  too  far  advanced  in  life  to  have 
the  direction  of  so  young  an  institution."  > 

In  November,  1761,  the  place  of  Mr.  Tread- 
well  was  at  length  filled  by  the  appointment  of 
Mr.  Robert  Harpur,  a  gentleman  educated  at 
Glasgow,  as  professor  of  Mathematics  and  Natu- 
ral Philosophy.  It  was  some  time  longer,  how- 
ever, before  Archbishop  Seeker's  inquiries  suc- 
ceeded in  finding  any  one  fitted  to  aid  Dr.  John- 
son in  discharging  the  duties  of  his  office,  and 
after  a  while  to  succeed  him  in  it.  The  person 
at  length  selected  for  this  purpose  was  the  Rev. 
Myles  Cooper,  A.M.,  a  Fellow  of  Qjieen's  College, 


OF   COLUMBIA   COLLEGE.  45 

Oxford,  who  came  out  in  the  autumn  of  1762. 
From  the  Archbishop,  who  had  on  several  pre- 
vious occasions,  mentioned  him,  he  brought  a 
letter  dated  Aug.  18th,  1762,  which  begins,  "  Good 
Dr.  Johnson.  The  bearer  is  Mr.  Cooper.  God 
grant  he  may  prove  a  proper  man,  and  useful 
among  you."  In  November  following,  Mr.  Coop- 
er was  appointed  Fellow  of  the  college,  Professor 
of  Moral  Philosophy,  and  to  assist  the  President 
in  his  instruction  and  government.  This  in- 
struction, given  by  the  President  had,  since  the 
regular  organization  of  the  college,  been  confined 
to  Greek,  Logic,  Metaphysics,  and  Ethics. 

Archbishop  Seeker  continued  to  testify  a  live- 
ly interest  in  Mr.  Cooper's  success,  and  the  wel- 
fare of  the  college,  mentioning  him  repeatedly  in 
subsequent  letters ;  and  on  the  30th  of  March, 
1763,  he  writes,  in  reference  to  Dr.  Johnson's 
(then,  as  he  thought,  only  purposed)  resignation, 
"  I  assure  you  I  will  do  nothing  to  retard  your 
retirement,  beyond  expressing  my  wishes  that 
you  would  be  so  kind  to  your  college,  and  to  Mr. 
Cooper,  as  to  give  him  competent  time  for  be- 
coming, and  showing  himself  in  some  degree 
proper  to  succeed  you."  But  Dr.  Johnson  had 
already,  on  the  1st  of  March,  resigned  his  office, 
and  on  the  12th  of  April  following,  Mr.  Cooper, 
upon  whom  his  duties  had  meantime  devolved, 
was  elected  to  supply  his  place.  Dr.  Johnson 


46  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

returned  to  Stratford  ;  where  in  the  midst  of  his 
son's  family,  surrounded  by  numerous  old  friends, 
he  passed  the  quiet  remainder  of  his  days. 

At  the  same  meeting  at  which  Dr.  Johnson's 
resignation  was  announced,  a  plan  was  adopted 
for  the  establishment  of  a  grammar  school  in 
connexion  with  the  college,  and  this  was  opened 
not  long  afterwards  under  the  charge  of  Mr.  Mat- 
thew Gushing,  of  Charlestown,  Massachusetts. 
A  librarian  also  was  appointed,  and  a  new  body 
of  laws,  better  adapted,  as  was  thought,  to  the 
actual  condition  of  the  college,  received  the  as- 
sent of  the  Governors,  and  on  the  following  day 
was  promulged  in  their  presence  in  the  College 
Hall.  Among  the  changes  which  it  introduced 
was  a  great  enlargement  of  the  scheme  of  studies 
in  the  classical  department,  although  these 
studies  were,  indeed,  from  the  very  first,  as  they 
continue  to  be,  regarded  by  the  college  as  of  pri- 
mary importance. 

Bishop  Berkeley,  when  suggesting  to  Dr. 
Johnson  various  hints  respecting  the  projected 
seminary,  five  years  previous  to  its  actual  estab- 
lishment, says,  "  Let  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics 
be  well  taught.  Be  this  the  first  care  as  to  learn- 
ing ;  but  the  principal  care  must  be  good  life  and 
morals,  to  which  (as  well  as  to  study)  early  hours 
and  temperate  meals  will  much  conduce." 

Mr.  Cooper,  whom  a  writer  on  the  state  of 


OF   COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  47 

education  in  this  country  about  thirty  years  ago 
thinks  to  have  been  "  the  most  elegant  scholar 
that  America  ever  saw,"  was  well  suited  to  fol- 
low out  these  enlarged  views  as  regarded  clas- 
sical instruction.  That  he  was  a  more  finished 
classical  scholar  than  his  predecessor  is  highly 
probable  ;  but  the  very  active  part  he  took  in  the 
political  controversies  of  his  time,  his  literary 
compositions,  as  compared  with  those  of  Dr. 
Johnson,  and  a  variety  of  circumstances  in  his  life 
and  conversation,  will  not  allow  of  our  esteeming 
him  so  judicious,  moderate,  learned,  and  truly 
wise  a  man.  Dr.  Johnson's  opinion  of  him  is 
briefly  given  in  a  letter  written  soon  after  his 
resignation  to  Doctor  (af. erwards  Bishop)  Home, 
wherein  he  expresses  his  hope  that  the  college 
will  be  "  well  governed  and  instructed  by  Mr. 
Cooper,  who  is  well  esteemed,  and  appears  to  be 
an  ingenious,  industrious,  and  prudent  young 
gentleman." 

When  Dr.  Johnson  retired  from  the  college 
he  left  there  four  and  twenty  students  ;  a  very 
inconsiderable  number,  it  is  true,  but  equivalent, 
nevertheless,  to  nine  hundred  at  the  present  day, 
if  proportionate  regard  be  had  to  the  population  of 
the  city  at  that  period  and  now.  Of  these  twen- 
ty-four, and  the  thirteen  admitted  during  the  two 
following  years,  only  twenty-eight  in  all  complet- 
ed iheir  college  course,  and  were  graduated  ;  but 


48  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

we  find  among  them  a  very  unsual  proportion  of 
distinguished  men.  The  biographer  of  one  of 
them,  Peter  Van  Schaack,  after  mentioning  that 
he  entered  the  Freshman  class  in  1762,  remarks, 
"  This  was  an  eventful  era  in  his  life.  It  was 
here  that  he  formed  an  interesting  and  valuable 
acquaintance  with  John  Jay,  Egbert  Benson, 
Richard  Harison,  Gouverneur  Morris,  Robert  R. 
Livingston,  and  many  other  illustrious  men, 
whose  enviable  reputations  now  constitute  the 
richest  property  of  their  country." 

The  first  commencement  at  which  Mr.  Cooper 
presided,  was  held  in  St.  George's  Chapel,  on  the 
17th  of  May,  1763,  five  weeks  after  his  appoint- 
ment, when  two  students  were  admitted  to  the 
degree  of  Bachelor,  and  seven  alumni  of  the  col- 
lege to  that  of  Master  of  Arts. 

The  commencement  of  the  following  year  also 
was  held  at  St.  George's  Chapel ;  but  all  the 
commencements  of  King's  College  subsequent  to 
that  were  in  Trinity  Church,  except  those  of 
1767  and  1768,  which  were  at  St.  Paul's  Chapel. 
Respecting  that  of  1765,  in  Trinity  Church,  we 
find  mentioned,  as  if  it  were  a  novelty,  that  three 
anthems,  and  several  other  pieces  of  music  were 
performed ;  and  so  of  the  following  commence- 
ment, also,  it  is  stated  that  "  the  exercises  Were 
intermixed  with  music." 

For  near  six  months  after  Mr.  Cooper's  ap- 


OF    COLUMBIA   COLLEGE.  49 

pointment  to  the  presidency,  he  had  the  aid  of 
both  Mr,  Cutting  and  Mr.  Harpur,  as  instructors 
in  the  college  ;  but  on  the  resignation  of  the  for- 
mer in  October,  1763,  he  greatly  needed  the  as- 
sistance of  some  other  teacher.  Negotiations 
were  entered  into  with  Mr.  Richardson  and  other 
gentlemen  of  Oxford,  and  efforts  were  made  in 
other  quarters,  but  for  a  long  time  in  vain,  to  find 
some  suitable  person  to  fill  Mr.  Cutting's  place. 
At  length,  on  the  24th  of  October,  1765,  Dr.  Glossy, 
a  gentleman  educated  at  Trinity  College,  Dub- 
lin, and  who,  before  his  emigration  to  America, 
had  attained  a  high  standing  in  his  profession, 
by  the  publication  of  an  able  work  on  Morbid 
Anatomy,  was  appointed  tutor,  with  a  salary  of 
£144,  and  a  further  salary  of  £36  was  assigned 
to  him  as  Professor  of  Natural  Philosophy  ;  Pro- 
fessor Harpur,  to  whom  this  subject  had  previ- 
ously belonged,  teaching  thenceforth  only  Ma- 
thematics. 

On  the  8th  of  May,  1764,  we  find  it  "  Ordered, 
that  a  conductor  be  fixed  to  the  cupola  of  the 
college,  as  a  security  against  lightning,"  a  cir- 
cumstance which  it  seems  excusable  to  mention, 
because  of  the  probability  that  this  lightning  rod 
and  that  on  the  Middle  Dutch  Church,  the  pre- 
sent Post  Office,  which  was  put  up  in  the  same 
year,  were  the  first  two  erected  in  the  city  of 
New- York. 

3 


50  AN   HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

On  the  23d  of  October,  in  this  year,  1764,  a 
committee  charged  with  the  erection  of  a  fence 
along  the  south  side  of  the  college  ground,  was 
further  empowered  to  build  a  porter's  lodge,  to 
level  the  college  yard,  and  to  plant  trees  along 
the  fence.  From  this  we  may  probably  infer  the 
age  of  the  noble  lindens  and  sycamores  which 
adorn  the  college  green. 

The  affairs  of  the  college  seem  to  have  gone 
on  prosperously  now  for  several  years.  The 
classes  were  taught  by  Mr.  Cooper,  Mr.  Harpur, 
and  Dr.  Glossy,  and  under  such  able  instructors 
possessed  advantages  which,  perhaps,  no  semi- 
nary of  so  young  a  standing  in  this  country  had 
enjoyed. 

In  1766,  Dr.  Johnson  made  his  last  visit  to 
New- York,  at  the  time  of  the  Commencement, 
and  had  the  satisfaction  of  finding  the  college  in  a 
flourishing  state,  and  of  seeing  the  public  exercises 
performed  in  a  manner  that  surpassed  his  ex- 
pectation. 

On  the  26th  of  February,  1767,  a  committee 
previously  appointed  to  petition  Sir  Henry  Moore, 
Governor  of  the  province,  for  a  grant  of  land, 
made  report  that  they  had  obtained  one  of  24,000 
acres.  The  same  committee  was  thereupon  em- 
powered to  view  the  lands^and,  if  it  was  thought 
fit,  to  have  them  surveyed.  From  subsequent 
proceedings  of  the  Governors,  in  relation  to  these 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  51 

lands,  on  the  20th  of  March,  1770,  when  measures 
for  their  more  speedy  settlement  were  adopted,  it 
appears  that  they  were  situate  in  the  new  county 
of  Gloucester,  in  the  province  of  New- York  ;  that 
they  were  not  only  erected  into  a  township,  with 
the  usual  privileges,  but  to  the  great  advantage, 
as  was  hoped,  of  the  college,  were  constituted  to 
become  the  county  town. 

,  All  these  anticipations,  however,  were  to  be 
disappointed.  Unluckily  for  the  college,  its 
township  was  comprehended  within  that  tract  of 
country  which,  after  being  in  dispute  for  six  and 
twenty  years  between  New- York  and  New- 
Hampshire,  or  settlers  claiming  under  grants  from 
her,  was  erected  into  the  new  State  of  Vermont, 
and  all  grants  of  lands  lying  within  its  limits, 
made  by  New- York,  were,  in  consideration  of 
thirty  thousand  dollars,  which  it  paid  to  New- 
York,  declared  null  and  void. 

This  treaty,  which  the  State  of  New- York, 
from  weighty  considerations  of  public  policy, 
rather  than  for  the  paltry  sum  of  money  paid, 
found  it  expedient  to  make,  surrendered  a  proper- 
ty belonging  to  the  college,  which  would  at  this 
day  have  been  of  immense  value,  and  in  so  doing, 
may  be  regarded  as  having  given  to  the  college 
a  claim  for  retribution,  which  all  that  the  State 
has  since  done  for  it  does  not  fully  satisfy. 

In  February,  1767,  Mr.  Harpur,  the  professor 


52  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

of  Mathematics,  resigned  his  office,  nor  does  it 
appear  that  any  person  was  appointed  in  his 
place. 

The  Grammar  School,  established  in  1763, 
seems  not  to  have  succeeded  as  was  hoped.  In 
August,  1767,  it  was  found  that  the  college  had 
sunk  by  it  about  £370.  Some  reforms  were  there- 
fore made,  and  its  expenses  were  reduced  by 
dispensing  with  one  of  the  teachers  until  then 
employed.  At  the  same  time  the  Governors  took 
an  important  step  towards  advancing  the  useful- 
ness and  reputation  of  the  college,  by  their  adop- 
tion of  a  scheme  proposed  by  Dr.  Glossy,  in  con- 
nexion with  Drs.  Middleton,  Jones,  Smith,  Bard, 
and  Tennent,  for  the  institution  of  a  Medical 
School  within  the  college. 

The  Governors  having  considered  the  plan 
submitted  by  these  gentlemen,  and  their  offer  to 
give  courses  of  lectures  during  the  winter,  each 
on  some  branch  of  his  profession,  expressed  a 
high  confidence  in  their  merit,  learning,  and  abil- 
ities, with  a  due  sense  of  their  generous  and  dis- 
interested proposals,  and  unanimously  appointed 
them  to  be  professors — Samuel  Glossy,  M.  D.,  of 
Anatomy  ;  Peter  Middleton,  M.  D.,  of  Pathology 
and  Physiology  ;  John  Jones,  M.  D.,  of  Surgery ; 
James  Smith,  M.  D.,  of  Chemistry  and  Materia 
Medica ;  Samuel  Bard,  M.  D.,  of  the  Theory  and 
Practice  of  Medicine ;  John  V.  Bi  Tennent,  M.  D., 
of  Midwifery. 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  53 

The  inaugural  discourses  of  these  professors, 
and  the  manner  in  which  they  acquitted  them- 
selves at  their  outset,  seem  to  have  given  great 
satisfaction  ;  for,  at  a  meeting  of  the  Governors,  on 
the  25th  of  November,  1767,  it  was  "  Ordered,  that 
Mr.  Attorney  General,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Anchmuty, 
and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Cooper,  be  a  committee  to  com- 
municate to  the  several  Medical  Professors  the 
high  opinion  this  corporation  entertains  of  the 
learning  and  abilities  whereby  they  have  respec- 
tively distinguished  themselves,  particularly  in 
their  introductory  lectures — to  thank  them  for  the 
zeal  they  have  expressed  for  the  honour  of  this 
seminary,  and  the  pains  they  have  taken  to  pro- 
mote its  interest,  and  to  signify  their  hopes  that  the 
said  professors,  by  a  continuance  of  their  services, 
will  render  the  science  of  medicine  much  more  re- 
spectable than  it  hath  hitherto  been  in  this  coun- 
try, to  their  own  honour,  the  reputation  of  the  col- 
lege, and  the  great  emolument  of  the  public." 

Three  of  these  professors,  the  Doctors  Middle- 
ton,  Jones,  and  Bard,  were  shortly  after  this  the 
most  active  promoters  of  that  noble  charity,  the 
New- York  Hospital,  and  it  appears  from  a  medi- 
cal discourse  delivered  by  Dr.  Middleton,  at  the 
college,  on  the  3d  of  November,  1769,  that  the 
first  suggestion  relative  to  the  establishment  of  a 
hospital  in  New- York  was  made  by  Dr.  Bard. 
"  The  necessity  and  usefulness  of  a  public  in- 


51  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

firmary,"  says  Dr.  Middleton,  "has  been  so 
warmly  and  pathetically  set  forth,  in  a  discourse 
delivered  by  Dr.  Samuel  Bard,  at  the  College 
Commencement  in  May  last,  that  his  Excellency 
Sir  Henry  Moore  immediately  set  on  foot  a  sub- 
scription for  that  purpose,  to  which  himself  and 
most  of  the  gentlemen  present  liberally  con- 
tributed."* 

For  several  years  after  the  organization  of  the 
Faculty  of  Medicine,  we  find  little  of  importance 
in  the  minutes  of  the  Governors,  besides  what 
has  been  already  noticed  ;  nor  is  there  any  thing, 
as  regards  the  college,  derived  from  other  quar- 
ters, that  deserves  particular  remark.  The  insti- 
tution seems  to  have  been  advancing  steadily  in 
a  prosperous  amd  quiet  course,  except  in  so  far  as 
the  daily  increasing  political  excitement  of  the 
times  may  have  disturbed  it. 

Among  papers  left  in  this  country  by  Dr. 
Cooper  (for  so  he  may  henceforth  be  styled,  as 
he  received  in  1768,  both  from  the  University  of 
Oxford,  and  from  the  Governors  of  King's  Col- 
lege, the  degree  of  LL.  D.)  there  is  one  contain- 
ing an  account  of  King's  College,  which  is  as- 
cribed to  him.  This  account  must  have  been 
written,  not  only  after  the  establishment  of  the 
Medical  School,  but,  since  Natural  Law  is  men- 

*  Account  of  the  N.  Y.  Hospital,  p.  63.  Historical  Sketch 
of  the  Coll.  of  Phys.  and  Surgeons,  p.  7. 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  55 

tioned  in  it  as  among  the  subjects  taught,  and 
there  was  no  professor  of  that  previous  to  1773, 
it  is  probably  to  be  assigned  to  some  date  not  long 
after  that. 

This  paper,  after  mentioning  the  manner  in 
which  the  college  was  founded,  and  some  lead- 
ing provisions  of  its  charter,  then  goes  on  to  state 
that  "  Since  the  passing  of  the  charter,  the  Insti- 
tution hath  received  great  emolument  by  grants 
from  his  most  gracious  majesty  King  George  the 
Third,  and  by  liberal  contributions  from  many 
of  the  nobility  and  gentry  in  the  parent  country  ; 
from  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gos- 
pel in  Foreign  Parts,  arid  from  several  public-spir- 
ited gentlemen  in  America  and  elsewhere.  By 
means  of  these  and  other  benefactions,  the  Gov- 
ernors of  the  College  have  been  enabled  to  extend 
their  plan  of  education  almost  as  diffusely  as  any 
college  in  Europe  ;  herein  being  taught,  by  proper 
Masters  and  Professors,  who  are  chosen  by  the 
Governors  and  President,  Divinity,  Natural  Law, 
Physic,  Logic,  Ethics,  Metaphysics,  Mathemat- 
ics, Natural  Philosophy,  Astronomy,  Geography. 
History,  Chronology,  Rhetoric,  Hebrew,  Greek, 
Latin,  Modern  Languages,  the  Belles  Lettres, 
and  whatever  else  of  literature  may  tend  to  ac- 
complish the  pupils  as  scholars  and  gentlemen. 

"  To  the  College  is  also  annexed  a  Grammar 
School,  for  the  due  preparation  of  those  who  pro- 


56  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

pose  to  complete  their  education  with  the  arts 
and  sciences, 

"All  students  but  those  in  Medicine,  are 
obliged  to  lodge  and  diet  in  the  College,  unless 
they  are  particularly  exempted  by  the  Governors 
or  President ;  and  the  edifice  is  surrounded  by 
an  high  fence,  which  also  encloses  a  large  court 
and  garden,  and  a  porter  constantly  attends  at 
the  front  gate,  which  is  closed  at  ten  o'clock  each 
evening  in  summer,  and  nine  in  winter;  after 
which  hours,  the  names  of  all  that  come  in,  are 
delivered  weekly  to  the  President. 

"  The  College  is  situated  on  a  dry  gravelly 
soil,  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  from  the 
bank  of  the  Hudson  river,  which  it  overlooks  j 
commanding  from  the  eminence  on  which  it 
stands,  a  most  extensive  and  beautiful  prospect 
of  the  opposite  shore  and  country  of  New  Jersey, 
the  City  and  Island  of  New- York,  Long  Island, 
Staten  Island,  New- York  Bay  with  its  Islands, 
the  Narrows,  forming  the  mouth  of  the  harbor, 
etc.  etc. ;  and  being  totally  unencumbered  by  any 
adjacent  buildings,  and  admitting  the  purest  cir- 
culation of  air  from  the  river,  and  every  other 
quarter,  has  the  benefit  of  as  agreeable  and 
healthy  a  situation  as  can  possibly  be  conceived. 

"  Visitations  by  the  Governors  are  quarterly  ; 
at  which  times,  premiums  of  books,  silver  med- 
als, etc.,  are  adjudged  to  the  most  deserving. 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  57 

"This  Seminary  hath  already  produced  a 
number  of  gentlemen  who  do  great  honour  to 
their  professions,  the  place  of  their  education, 
and  themselves,  in  Divinity,  Law,  Medicine,  etc. 
etc.,  in  this  and  various  other  colonies,  both  on 
the  American  continent  and  West  India  Islands  ; 
and  the  College  is  annually  increasing  as  well  in 
students  as  reputation." 

The  Rev.  John  Vardill,  A.  M.,  appointed  in 
1773  Professor  of  Natural  Law,  and  soon  after 
of  History  and  Languages  also,  was  an  alumnus 
of  King's  College,  and  the  first  one  who  was 
ever  appointed  to  any  office  therein — a  pupil  of 
Dr.  Cooper,  he  seems  to  have  agreed  with  him 
entirely  in  politics.  He  must  have  left  this 
country  very  soon  after  his  appointment,  if,  in- 
deed, he  were  not  absent  when  it  was  made,  for 
the  writer  of  a  letter  from  London,  in  the  begin- 
ning of  1775,  speaks  of  him  as  "  Parson  Var- 
dill, a  native  of  New- York,  who  has  been  here 
a  twelvemonth,  a  ministerial  writer  under  the 
signature  of  Coriolanus,  lately  appointed  King's 
Professor  in  the  College  of  New- York,  with  a 
salary  of  £200  sterling." 

Dr.  Cooper  may  have  thought  himself  in 
duty  bound  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  fierce 
strife  of  tongues  and  pens  which,  towards  the 
close  of  his  presidency,  exercised  the  utmost 
powers  of  all  who  imagined  they  could  use 


58  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

those  weapons  with  effect.  He  of  course  "  took 
the  side  of  the  British  government,  and  distin- 
guished himself  in  the  political  controversies  of 
the  day  against  Smith,  Livingston,  and  other 
literary  champions  of  the  whig  party.  In  one 
of  these  skirmishes,  he  is  said  to  have  been  met 
and  worsted  by  an  anonymous  antagonist,  whom 
he  soon  after  discovered  in  the  person  of  one  of 
his  own  pupils,  Alexander  Hamilton,  then  a 
student  in  one  of  the  younger  classes.  It  would 
be  injustice  to  the  memory  of  Dr.  Cooper,  not  to 
add,  that  far  from  betraying  any  thing  like  mor- 
tification or  resentment,  he  uniformly  treated  his 
youthful  antagonist  with  good  humour  and  even 
respect.* 

It  may  justly  be  regarded  as  a  proof  of  the 
influence  which  liberal  studies  exercise  upon  the 
minds  of  youth,  in  awakening  a  love  of  liberty — 
a  spirit  intolerant  of  tyranny,  injustice,  and  op- 
pression,— that,  notwithstanding  the  political 
principles  of  those  who  administered  the  govern, 
ment  of  King's  College,  and  especially  of  Dr. 
Cooper  ;  and  although  the  talents  and  popularity 
of  the  President  might  seem  likely  to  recommend 
his  opinions  to  his  pupils,  yet  a  large  proportion 
of  them  were  so  far  from  adopting  his  tory  prin- 
ciples, as  to  be  among  the  foremost  champions 
of  liberty,  in  the  cabinet  and  the  field.  "  There 

*  Analectic  Mag.  v.  14,  p.  96. 


OP    COLUMBIA   COLLEGE.  59 

were  early  found  Jay  and  Livingston,  Morris 
and  Benson,  Van  Cortlandt  and  Rutgers,  and 
Troup  and  Hamilton."* 

The  name  of  Hamilton  (whom  the  College 
has  always  insisted  on  reckoning  as  one  of  her 
Alumni),  stands  conspicuous  among  those  of 
students  matriculated  in  1774.  Had  the  circum- 
stances of  the  college  and  those  eventful  times 
allowed  him  to  complete  his  academic  course,  it 
would,  no  doubt,  considering  his  ardor  and 
activity  of  mind,  have  been  a  brilliant  one  even 
within  the  college  walls  ;  but  the  voice  of  his 
country  called  him  to  a  higher  and  more  extend- 
ed sphere  of  action.  Abandoning  the  studious 
retirement  of  academic  shades,  to  take  part  in 
the  struggles  of  the  battle-field,  or  the  delibera- 
tions of  the  cabinet,  he  has  made  his  name  the 
property  of  the  historian,  and  the  theme  of  a 
loftier  praise  than  any  that  these  pages  are  able 
to  award. 

The  boldness  with  which  Dr.  Cooper  main- 
tained in  his  writings  and  his  conversation, 
principles  and  sentiments  highly  offensive  to  a 
most  numerous  party,  at  a  time  of  great  popular 
excitement,  at  length  so  roused  the  indignation 
of  his  political  opponents,  that  on  the  night  of 
May  10th,  1775,  his  lodgings  in  the  college  were 

*  Verplanck's  Address,  delivered  before  the  Philolexian  and 
Peithologian  Societies  of  Col.  Coll.  p.  13. 


60  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

forcibly  entered  by  a  mob,  to  the  fury  of  which, 
had  he  been  found  there,  he  would  probably 
have  fallen  a  victim.  A.  few  days  previous,  had 
been  published  a  letter,  dated  Philadelphia, 
April  25,  1775,  addressed  to  Dr.  Cooper  and  four 
other  obnoxious  gentlemen  of  this  city,  ascribing 
to  them,  and  to  their  assurances  of  the  defection 
of  New- York,  all  the  hostile  proceedings  of  Eng- 
land— the  blood  of  their  fellow-subjects  who  had 
fallen  in  Massachusetts — towns  in  flames — a  de- 
solated country — butchered  fathers,  weeping 
widows  and  children,  with  all  the  horrors  of  a 
civil  war.  They  are  denounced  as  parricides, 
and  told  that  the  Americans,  reduced  to  despe- 
ration, will  no  longer  satisfy  their  resentment 
with  the  execution  of  villains  in  effigy ;  and  the 
letter  concludes, 

"  Fly  for  your  lives,  or  anticipate  your  doom 
by  becoming  your  own  executioners. 

"  THREE  MILLIONS  "* 

If  those  of  the  three  millions  who  sought  Dr. 
Cooper  on  this  occasion,  were  animated  by  the 
wrathful  spirit  which  breathes  through  this  epis- 
tle, we  may  easily  imagine  the  treatment  he 
would  have  received  from  them.  But  their 
design  was  frustrated  by  one  of  his  former  pupils, 
who,  preceding  the  throng  of  several  hundred 

*  Amer.  Archives,  4th  Series,  vol.  2.  col.  389. 


OP   COLUMBIA    CO.LLEGE.  61 

men,  admonished  him  of  his  danger  just  in  time 
to  save  him.  He  escaped,  only  half-dressed, 
over  the  college  fence  ;  reached  the  shore  of  the 
Hudson,  and  wandered  along  the  river  bank  till 
near  morning,  when  he  found  shelter  in  the 
house  of  his  friend  Mr.  Stuyvesant,  where  he 
remained  for  that  day,  and  during  the  night 
following  took  refuge  on  board  the  Kingfisher, 
Captain  James  Montagu,  an  English  ship  of 
war  at  anchor  in  the  harbour,  in  which  soon  af- 
terwards he  sailed  for  England. 

On  the  16th  of  May,  or  six  days  after  this 
narrow  escape  of  the  President,  the  Rev.  Benja- 
min Moore,  an  alumnus  of  the  college,  who  a 
few  months  previous  had  returned  from  England 
in  holy  orders,  was  appointed  by  the  Governors 
Prceses  pro  tempore ;  it  being  supposed  that 
Dr.  Cooper  might,  which  he  never  did,  return. 

In  consequence  of  Dr.  Cooper's  absence  there 
was  no  public  commencement  held  this  year; 
but  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  was  conferred 
on  seven  students,  and  that  of  Master  of  Arts  on 
two  alumni  of  the  college  ;  and  eight  students 
were  admitted. 

On  the  6th  of  April,  in  the  following  year, 
1776,  the  Treasurer  of  the  College  received  from 
the  Committee  of  Safety  a  message,  desiring 
the  Governors  to  prepare  the  College  within  six 
days,  for  the  reception  of  troops.  The  students 


62  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

were  in  consequence  dispersed,  the  library  and 
apparatus  were  deposited  in  the  City  Hall,  or 
elsewhere,  and  the  college  edifice  was  converted 
into  a  military  hospital.  Almost  all  the  appara- 
tus, and  a  large  proportion  of  the  books  belong- 
ing to  the  college,  were  wholly  lost  to  it  in  con- 
sequence of  this  removal ;  and  of  the  books 
recovered,  six  or  seven  hundred  volumes  were 
so,  only  after  about  thirty  years,  when  they  were 
found,  with  as  many  belonging  to  the  N.  Y. 
Society  Library,  and  some  belonging  to  Trinity 
Church,  in  a  room  in  St.  Paul's  Chapel,  where, 
it  seemed,  no  one  but  the  Sexton  had  been 
aware  of  their  existence,  and  neither  he  nor  any 
body  else  could  tell  how  they  had  arrived  there. 

Previous  to  this  dispersion  of  the  college 
library,  it  contained,  besides  books  purchased  by 
the  Governors  and  those  bequeathed  by  Dr.  Bris- 
towe  and  by  Mr.  Murray,  many  valuable  works 
given  by  the  Earl  of  Bute  and  other  individuals, 
and  from  the  University  of  Oxford,  a  copy  of 
every  work  printed  at  the  University  Press. 

This  forcible  seizure  of  the  college  build- 
ing, for  as  such,  in  fact,  we  may  regard  it,  was 
perhaps  suggested  by  the  same  feeling  of  politi- 
cal animosity  that  had  been  manifested  with 
such  violence  in  the  attempt  to  seize  on  Dr. 
Cooper's  person.  The  Committee  of  Safety, 
when  they  aimed  this  blow  at  an  obnoxious  in- 


OP    COLUMBIA   COLLEGE.  63 

stitution,  which  they  looked  upon  as  a  mere  hot- 
bed of  Toryism,  were  little  aware  of  the  fruits 
their  country  was  about  to  reap  from  plants  that 
had  been  reared  in  it. 

An  eminent  jurist  has  remarked  "  that  until 
the  foundation  of  King's  College,  little  more  than 
twenty  years  before  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, there  were  no  seminaries  within  the 
colony,  in  which  any  other  than  a  very  indiifer- 
ent  education  could  be  procured.  The  influence 
of  that  institution  on  the  literary  character  of  the 
State  was  truly  wonderful ;  for  though  the  whole 
number  of  students  educated  in  the  college  prior 
to  1775,  was  but  one  hundred,  many  of  them  at- 
tained to  great  distinction  in  their  respective  pro- 
fessions and  in  public  life.  In  reference  to  them 
and  to  their  Alma  Mater,  the  language  of  the 
Roman  poet  would  scarcely  be  too  strong." 

"  Felix  prole  virum 

Lseta  deum  partu,  centum  complexa  nepotes, 
Omnes  ccelicolas,  omnes  supera  alta  tenentes." 

As  a  specimen  of  the  elder  born  of  this  "  Tita- 
nian  progeny,"  our  author  names  "Robert  R.  Liv- 
ingston, Gouverneur  Morris,  and  John  Jay,  each 
distinguished,  alike  by  his  genius  and  erudition, 
and  all  illustrious  in  the  annals  of  their  country, 
for  their  talents  as  writers  and  their  services  as 
statesmen."* 

*  Benj.  F.  Butler's  Anniversary  Discourse  b  the  Albany 
Institute  in  1830,  p.  54. 


64  AN  HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

In  the  year  1776,  again,  no  public  commence- 
ment was  held ;  but  six  students,  who  had  just 
completed  their  course  when  the  College  was 
broken  up,  were  admitted  to  the  degree  of  Bache- 
lor of  Arts.  The  college  record  of  this  year  re- 
marks, "  The  turbulence  and  confusion  which 
prevail  in  every  part  of  the  country  effectually 
suppress  every  literary  pursuit." 

It  would  seem,  however,  that  some  instruc- 
tion continued  to  be  given  under  the  auspices  of 
King's  College,  though  not  within  its  walls,  for 
we  find  in  its  Matricula  the  names  of  William 
Walton  and  James  De  Lancey  Walton,  entered 
in  the  year  1777 ;  and  the  Governors  appear  to 
have  met  occasionally  after  this,  for  there  exists 
a  certified  copy  of  minutes  of  a  meeting  on  the 
17th  of  May,  1781.  These  are  the  only  indica- 
tions, faint  as  they  are,  which  have  been  discov- 
ered of  the  slumbering  existence  of  the  college 
during  a  period  of  eight  years — from  the  spring 
of  1776  to  that  of  1784 — except,  that  it  afterwards 
appears  from  the  minutes  of  the  Trustees  of  Co- 
lumbia College,  on  the  28th  of  March,  1788,  that 
Mr.  Moore,  the  President  ad  interim,  occupied 
during  a  part  of  this  period  a  house  furnished 
by  Mr.  Lispenard  for  the  use  of  the  officers  and 
students  of  the  college,  when  the  college  edifice 
was  converted  into  a  hospital. 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  65 

At  the  end  of  this  period  of  eight  years,  during 
which  the  college  remained  in  abeyance,  as  it  were, 
the  Legislature  of  New- York,  on  the  1st  of  May, 
J784,  passed  "  An  Act  for  granting  certain  privi- 
leges to  the  college  heretofore  called  King's  Col- 
lege, for  altering  the  name  and  charter  thereof, 
and  erecting  an  University  within  this  State." 

The  Regents  of  the  University  appointed  by 
this  Act  held  their  first  meeting  only  four  days 
after  the  passing  of  it ;  but,  for  want  of  a  quorum 
adjourned  to  the  day  following,  when  they  or- 
ganized their  Board  by  the  appointment  of  Gov- 
ernor Clinton,  as  Chancellor  ;  the  Hon.  Pierre 
Van  Cortlandt,  as  Vice  Chancellor ;  Brockholst 
Livingston,  as  Treasurer ;  and  Robert  Harpur, 
as  Secretary  of  the  University.  Mr.  Livingston, 
who  in  the  office  to  which  he  was  now  appoint- 
ed continued  to  serve  Columbia  College  zealous- 
ly and  faithfully  during  the  long  period  of  forty 
years,  being  a  son  of  the  gentleman  who  had  so 
bitterly  opposed  King's  College  thirty  years  be- 
fore ;  and  Mr.  Harpur,  the  same  person  who  had 
seventeen  years  before  resigned  his  professorship 
therein. 

At  this  same  meeting  a  committee  was  ap- 
pointed "  to  demand  and  receive  from  the  late 
corporation  of  the  college  called  King's  College" 
whatever  property  had  belonged  to  it ;  and  the 
Regents  entered  with  laudable  activity  upon 


66  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

their  task  of  setting  in  order  the  affairs  of  the 
revived  institution,  which  by  the  recent  Act  was 
styled  Columbia  College.  Among  other  measures 
for  that  purpose  adopted  at  this  first  meeting, 
was  the  appointment  of  the  Rev.  John  Peter  Te- 
tard  as  Professor  of  the  French  Language,  and 
the  assignment  of  various  important  matters  to 
several  committees.  One  was  charged  with  the 
repair's  of  the  college  edifice ;  another  with  the 
duty  of  engaging  proper  instructors  ;  a  third  with 
that  of  devising  a  seal  for  the  new  coporation ;  a 
fourth  with  that  of  preparing  by-laws  for  it ;  and 
a  fifth  with  the  care  of  sending  a  suitable  person 
to  solicit  subscriptions  in  France  and  other  parts 
of  Europe.  This  last  measure,  and  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  French  Professor  before  any  other,  may 
be  viewed  as  evidence  of  the  more  intimate  re- 
lations subsisting  between  the  now  independent 
States  and  France. 

On  the  15th  of  the  same  month  of  May,  the 
Regents  resolved  to  institute  a  Grammar  School 
in  the  college,  and  appointed  Mr.  William  Coch- 
ran  as  master  thereof,  and  also  to  be  temporary 
teacher  in  the  college,  of  the  Greek  and  Latin 
Languages ;  of  which,  on  the  23d  of  December 
following,  he  was  elected  Professor. 

On  the  17th  of  May,  1784,  the  first  student  of 
the  college,  under  its  new  name  and  government, 
De  Witt  Clinton,  presenting  himself  as  a  candi- 


OF    COLUMBIA    C4OLLEGE.  67 

date  for  admission  into  the  Junior  Class,  was  ex- 
amined, found  qualified,  and  admitted  according- 
ly by  a  committee  of  the  Regents  consisting  of 
the  Chancellor,  Vice  Chancellor,  and  Secretary, 
the  Mayor  of  New- York,  and  the  newly  ap- 
pointed professor  Tetard.  And  in  this  manner, 
by  a  committee  of  the  Regents,  do  all  subsequent 
examinations  appear  to  have  been  conducted,  for 
so  long  as  the  college  continued  under  their  im- 
mediate care.  During  this  period,  which  was  of 
about  three  years,  they  seem  to  have  been  very 
zealous  and  active  in  their  endeavours  to  place 
the  college  on  a  respectable  footing — to  make  it, 
in  fact,  the  nucleus  of  an  institution  which  might 
deserve  to  be  styled  an  University.  With  this 
view  they  applied  themselves  diligently  to  ob- 
tain subscriptions  of  money  towards  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  college  ;  and  making  large  calcu- 
lations, probably,  on  the  success  of  these,  they 
resolved,  December  14th,  1784,  to  organize  the 
four  faculties  of  Arts,  Divinity,  Medicine,  and 
Law,  making  the  first  to  comprise  seven  profes- 
sorships, the  second  to  consist  of  such  as  might 
be  established  by  the  different  religious  socie- 
ties within  the  State,  pursuant  to  the  Act  insti- 
tuting the  University — the  third  to  be  com- 
posed of  seven  professors,  and  the  last  of  three. 
Besides  all  which  there  were  to  be  nine  extra 
professors,  a  president,  a  secretary,  and  a  libra- 


68  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

rian — and  all  this  magnificent  scheme  was 
adopted  when  the  entire  income  from  the  real 
and  personal  property  of  the  college  did  not  ex- 
ceed the  sum  of  twelve  hundred  pounds. 

From  the  catalogue  of  the  college  it  may  be 
seen  what  professorships  were,  in  fact,  establish- 
ed at  this  time,  or  afterwards,  while  the  college 
remained  under  the  immediate  superintendence 
of  the  Regents.  During  this  period  no  president 
was  appointed,  but  the  duties  of  the  office  were 
discharged  by  the  professors,  in  turn,  and  at  the 
commencements  held  in  1786  and  1787,  instead 
of  diplomas,  there  were  given  under  the  seal  of 
the  corporation,  and  signed  by  the  secretary,  cer- 
tificates that  the  parties  receiving  them  were  en- 
titled to  the  degree. of  Bachelor  of  Arts. 

This  delay  in  appointing  a  President  appears 
from  a  report  adopted  by  the  Regents,  April  4th, 
1785,  to  have  been  because  the  deranged  state  of 
the  funds  of  the  college,  and  the  great  losses  it 
had  sustained,  rendered  them  unable  to  offer  such 
a  salary  as  would  induce  a  suitable  person  to 
accept  the  office.  < 

At  length  the  Regents  becoming  sensible  of 
the  defective  constitution  of  the  University  un- 
der the  law  from  which  they  derived  their  au- 
thority ;  and  a  committee  appointed  to  consider 
its  state  having,  on  the  15th  of  February,  1787, 
together  with  their  report  thereon,  submitted  the 


OP    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  69 

draft  of  a  bill  containing  provisions  calculated,  as 
they  thought,  to  remedy  the  defects  of  the  actual 
system,  the  Regents  adopted  the  report  of  this 
committee,  and  laid  their  bill,  as  amended  by  a 
subsequent  committee,  of  which  John  Jay  and 
Alexander  Hamilton  were  members,  before  the 
Legislature  of  the  State,  which  on  the  13th  of 
April  following  passed,  accordingly,  "  An  Act  to 
institute  an  University  within  this  State,  and 
for  other  purposes  therein  mentioned." 

By  the  8th,  and  some  of  the  subsequent  sec- 
tions of  this  Act,  which  have  reference  to  Colum- 
bia-College, its  original  charter,  with  the  necessa- 
ry alterations,  was  confirmed,  and  it  was  placed 
under  the  care  of  twenty-nine  gentlemen  named 
in  the  Act  as  its  Trustees,  who  were  to  exercise 
their  functions  until  their  number  should  be  re- 
duced by  death,  resignation  or  removal  from  the 
state,  to  twenty-four,  after  which  all  vacancies 
in  their  number  were  to  be  filled  by  their  own 
choice. 


The  first  meeting  of  the  Trustees  of  Colum- 
bia College  was  on  the  8th  of  May,  1787,  when 
they  reappointed  Robert  Harpur  and  Brockholst 
Livingston  to  their  respective  offices  of  Clerk  and 
Treasurer,  and  adopted,  in  so  far  as  they  were  not 


70  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

repugnant  to  the  present  constitution  of  the  col- 
lege, the  by-laws  which  had  been  established  by 
the  Regents  for  its  government. 

On  the  21st  of  the  same  month  of  May,  Wil- 
liam Samuel  Johnson,  L.  L.  D.,  son  of  the  first 
president  of  King's  College,  was  elected  Presi- 
dent, and  on  the  12th  of  November  following,  he 
signified  to  the  Trustees  his  acceptance  of  the 
office. 

At  this  time  the  Faculty  of  Arts  and  that  of 
Medicine,  consisted,  each,  of  three  professors. 
There  were  no  professors  in  the  Faculties  of  Law 
and  of  Divinity,  and  the  only  extra  professor 
was  one  of  the  German  Language,  who  received 
no  salary.  Of  the  thirty-nine  students,  (nearly 
one-half  of  them  belonging  to  the  Freshman 
Class,)  five  lodged  and  boarded  in  the  college, 
and  five  others  had  rooms  and  studied  there. 
The  yearly  income  of  the  Institution  was  about 
one  thousand  three  hundred  and  thirty  pounds. 

During  the  first  four  or  five  years  after  the  re- 
organization of  the  college,  there  occurred  scarce- 
ly any  thing  that  deserves  mention,  except  the 
resignation  in  1789  of  Mr.  William  Cochran,  Pro- 
fessor of  the  Greek  and  Latin  Languages,  and 
the  appointment  of  Mr.  Peter  Wilson  in  his  place. 

One  of  the  students  in  college,  during  these 
first  years  of  its  renewed  existence,  but  who  did 
not  finish  his  course  there,  was  John  Randolph, 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  71 

of  Mattoax,  Virginia,  at  that  time,  but  better 
known  afterwards  as  of  Roanoke.  He  and  his 
brother,  Theodoric,  entered  the  Freshman  Class 
in  1788,  and  were  promoted  to  the  Sophomore 
Class  in  1789  ;  after  which  Theodoric's  name 
does  not  again  occur ;  but  John,  as  appears  from 
the  matricula,  entered  the  Junior  Class  of  the  fol- 
lowing year. 

In  February,  1792,  the  Trustees,  acting  on 
the  suggestion  of  the  Medical  Society  of  the  State, 
and  in  concert  with  the  Regents  of  the  University, 
established  the  Medical  School  of  the  college  on 
a  more  respectable  footing  than  before,  by  the 
appointment  of  a  Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Medi- 
cine, and  seven  Medical  Professors.  Dr.  Samuel 
Bard,  who  had  been  Professor  of  the  Theory  and 
Practice  of  Medicine  in  the  first  medical  school 
established  in  the  college  in  1767,  and  more  re- 
cently had  held  first  the  professorship  of  Chem- 
istry, and  then  that  of  Natural  Philosophy  arid 
Astronomy,  while  the  college  was  governed  by 
the  Regents,  was  now  elected  Dean  of  the  new 
Faculty,  in  which  there  were  associated  with 
him  Doctors  Bailey,  Post,  Rodgers,  Hamersley, 
Smith,  Nicoll,  and  Kissam,  all  eminent  in  their 
profession. 

Dr.  Romaine,  who  had  been  giving  lectures 
at  the  college  on  certain  branches  of  medical  sci- 
ence, having,  on  the  organization  of  this  new 


72  AN   HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

school,  resigned  his  office,  the  rooms  which  had 
been  used  by  him  were  arranged  for  its  accom- 
modation, such  alterations  being  made  therein  as 
were  required. 

In  April,  1792,  the  Rev.  Elias  D.  Rattoon,  on 
the  resignation  of  Professor  Wilson,  was  chosen 
Professor  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  Languages  ; 
and  in  May,  1794,  received  the  further  appoint- 
ment of  Professor  of  Grecian  and  Roman  Anti- 
quities. He  resigned  both  offices  on  the  9th  of 
June,  1797,  and  on  the  19th  of  the  same  month, 
his  predecessor,  Dr.  Wilson,  was  re-elected  to  fill 
them,  as  he  thenceforth  continued  to  do  for  three 
and  twenty  years. 

Besides  the  establishment  of  a  medical  school, 
the  Trustees  gave  further  evidence,  during  the 
year  1792,  of  their  desire  to  make  the  college 
useful  and  respectable,  by  filling  several  other 
professorships.  Dr.  Kunze  was  re-appointed  Pro- 
fessor of  Oriental  Languages.  Dr.  Mitchell  was 
chosen  Professor  of  Natural  History,  Chemistry, 
Agriculture,  and  Botany ;  and  M.  de  Marcelin, 
Professor  of  French.  In  the  following  year,  1793, 
Mr.  James  Kent  was  elected  Professor  of  Law, 
and  in  1795,  the  Rev.  Dr.  M'Knight  was  appoint- 
ed Professor  of  Moral  philosophy  arid  Logic,  the 
Rev.  John  Bisset,  A.  M.,  of  Aberdeen,  Professor 
of  Rhetoric  and  Belles  Lettres :  and  the  professor- 
ship of  Geography  was  assigned  to  Dj1.  Kemp,  in 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  73 

addition  to  that  of  Mathematics  and  Natural  phi- 
losophy, which  he  already  held. 

Meanwhile  the  foundation  of  an  additional 
building  was,  in  conformity  with  the  original  plan 
of  the  college,  laid  at  right  angles  to  the  existing 
edifice,  along  the  west  side  of  the  college  green  ; 
and  on  the  northern  end  of  this  foundation,  in 
order  to  supply  the  more  immediate  wants  of  the 
institution,  was  begun  a  superstructure  intended 
to  contain  a  hall  and  several  recitation  rooms. 

The  Trustees  were  encouraged  to  the  making 
of  the  appointments  just  now  mentioned,  the 
laying  of  this  more  extensive  foundation  than 
they  were  able  to  finish,  and  the  purchase  of  a 
large  addition  to  the  college  library,  by  a  grant 
obtained  from  the  Legislature  in  April,  1792,  of 
£7,900,  and  of  the  further  sum  of  £750  annually 
for  five  years.  They  soon  discovered,  however, 
that  they  had  extended  their  views,  and  had 
proceeded  in  their  plan  of  building,  farther  than 
this  addition  to  their  means  would  warrant.  In 
1796,  they  were  obliged  again  to  ask  for  legisla- 
tive aid  to  complete  their  edifice ;  and  their  appli- 
cation proving  unsuccessful,  the  committee  em- 
ployed about  the  new  building,  was  empowered 
to  proceed  with  it  until  the  money  granted  for 
that  purpose  should  be  expended,  and  in  June,  of 
the  year  following,  was  directed  to  sell  the  perish- 


74  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

able  building  materials  which  then  remained  on 
hand. 

/The  annual  payment  of  £750  by  the  State 
being  discontinued  on  the  expiration  of  the  period 
of  five  years,  for  which  it  had  been  granted,  the 
additional  professors,  towards  whose  salaries  that 
money  had  been  applied,  were  found  too  bur- 
thensome,  and  consequently,  in  February,  1799, 
the  duty  of  teaching  Rhetoric  and  Belles-Lettres, 
Logic  and  Moral  Philosophy,  was  devolved  upon 
the  President.  Mathematics,  Natural  Philosophy 
and  Geography  were  united  under  one  professor- 
ship. The  Latin  and  Greek  Languages,  Roman 
and  Grecian  Antiquities,  were  combined  to  form 
another.  The  professorships  of  the  Oriental  Lan- 
guages, of  French,  and  of  Law,  were  discontin- 
ued. A  professorship,  however,  of  Natural  His- 
tory and  Chemistry  was  instituted,  and  these 
studies  were  made  to  form  part  of  the  regular 
academic  course. 

On  the  16th  of  July,  1800,  Dr.  Johnson,  hav- 
ing nearly  reached  his  74th  year,  and  feeling  the 
infirmities  of  age,  resigned  his  presidency,  and 
retired  to  Stratford.  The  tranquil  life  to  which 
he  was  there  restored,  and  the  air  of  his  native 
village,  re-established  in  a  great  degree  his  bodily 
health,  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  leisure  so  well 
earned  by  the  professional  toils  and  highly  im- 
portant public  services  of  his  previous  long  career, 


OF    COLUMBIA   COLLEGE.  75 

he  lived  to  enter  upon  his  93d  year,  "  retaining 
to  the  last  his  vigor  and  activity  of  mind,  the  ar- 
dor of  his  literary  curiosity,  and  a  most  lively 
interest  in  whatever  concerned  the  welfare  of  this 
country,  and  of  the  Christian  world." 

On  Dr.  Johnson's  resignation  the  Trustees 
empowered  the  senior  professor  to  preside  at  the 
ensuing  commencement,  and  to  confer  the  de- 
grees that  had  been  ordered. 

On  the  25th  of  May,  1801,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Wharton,  of  Philadelphia,  was  elected  president, 
and,  on  the  3d  of  August,  signified,  by  letter,  his 
acceptance  of  the  office,  which,  on  the  llth  of 
December  following,  he  resigned. 

It  was  now  determined  that  the  professorship 
which  for  about  three  years  had  been  annexed 
to  the  presidential  office,  should  be  detached 
therefrom,  and  that  the  President,  in  future, 
should  be  charged  merely  with  a  general  super- 
intendence of  the  institution,  the  duty  of  attend- 
ing at  examinations,  presiding  at  commence- 
ments, and  performing  such  other  acts  as  are 
more  peculiar  to  his  office.  This  change  was 
adopted  on  the  30th  of  December,  1801,  and  on 
the  following  day  the  Right  Rev.  Benjamin 
Moore  was  appointed  to  the  office  of  President, 
which  he  had  held  ad  interim  on  the  departure 
of  Dr.  Cooper,  above  six  and  twenty  years  before. 
At  the  same  time  the  Rev.  Dr.  Bowden,  who, 


76  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

like  Bishop  Moore,  was  an  alumnus  of  the  Col- 
lege, was  appointed  to  the  now  distinct  profes- 
sorship of  Moral  Philosophy,  Rhetoric  and  Belles- 
Lettres,  and  Logic. 

Under  this  new  arrangement  the  President 
was  not  expected  to  reside  in  the  college,  nor,  on 
ordinary  occasions,  to  take  an  active  part  in  its 
discipline  and  government ;  the  chief  manage- 
ment of  its  daily  concerns  "being  committed  to 
the  professors.  The  plan  was  not  a  good  one  in 
itself;  but,  Doctors  Kemp,  Wilson,  and  Bowden, 
being  highly  respectable  and  able  men,  the  col- 
lege, notwithstanding,  went  on  well,  increasing 
in  reputation  and  in  number.  Its  funds  derived 
some  augmentation  from  a  grant  of  lands  made 
to  it  in  1802  by  the  Regents  of  the  University  ; 
its  real  estate  in  the  city  was  daily  becoming 
more  valuable  ;  the  hall  and  recitation  rooms  on 
the  north  end  of  the  new  foundation  were  com- 
pleted ;  and,  though  the  remainder  of  that  foun- 
dation (already  falling  to  ruin)  and  the  original 
college  edifice  presented  a  decayed  and  unsightly 
appearance,  yet  the  internal  condition  of  the  insti- 
tution, at  this  period,  was  not  unprosperous. 

And,  except  that  its  buildings  were  yearly 
growing  worse,  there  was  little  change  about  the 
college,  nor  does  its  history  offer  any  thing  that 
deserves  especial  notice  until  the  22d  of  June, 
1809,  when,  upon  the  recommendation  of  a  corn- 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  77 

rnittee,  consisting  of  Mr.  Rnfus  King,  and  the 
Reverend  Doctors  Mason,  Abeel,  Hobart,  and 
Miller,  a  new  regulation  was  adopted,  whereby 
the  requisites  for  admission  into  college,  after  the 
1st  of  October,  1810,  were  raised  much  higher 
than  they  had  ever  been  before  ;  and  in  February 
following,  the  same  committee,  to  which  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Romeyn  had  in  the  interim  been  added,  re- 
ported, also,  a  new  course  of  studies  and  system 
of  discipline  within  the  college,  in  accordance 
with  the  new  statute  as  to  admission. 

The  adoption  of  the  well-considered  plans  of 
this  very  able  committee  was  calculated,  and  has 
had  the  effect,  greatly  to  elevate  and  extend  our 
system  of  collegiate  education.  The  plan  then 
adopted,  although  it  has  since,  from  time  to  time, 
undergone  various  modifications,  still  continues  to 
form  the  basis  on  which  our  present  plans  of  dis- 
cipline and  study  rest. 

In  the  spring  of  1810  the  Trustees  obtained 
a  new  charter  from  the  Legislature  of  the  State, 
by  which  certain  restrictions  in  the  former  char- 
ter were  removed,  and  some  defects  therein, 
which  experience  had  discovered,  were  supplied. 
Among  other  alterations,  the  limit  of  the  term  for 
which  the  college  may  grant  leases  was  extended 
from  twenty-one  to  sixty-three  years. 

From  the  annual  report  to  the  Regents,  in 
February,  1810,  it  appears,  that  the  number  of 


73  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

students  matriculated  for  that  year  was  135. 
The  Trustees  remark,  that  on  comparing  this 
with  former  reports  "  the  Regents  will  perceive 
that  notwithstanding  the  many  embarrassments 
with  which  she  has  to  struggle,  Columbia  Col- 
lege not  only  maintains  her  ground,  but  increases 
her  importance."  They  further  observe,  that 
they  have  prosecuted  the  theoretical  and  practi- 
cal system  of  the  college  so  far  towards  its  re- 
sults as  "  to  lay  a  broader  and  stronger  basis  for 
sound  and  thorough  education  than  (as  they  be- 
lieve) has  hitherto  been  known  in  these  States." 
The  affairs  of  the  institution  being,  in.  some 
respects,  thus  hopeful,  and  a  great  zeal  for  its  ad- 
vancement manifested,  Bishop  Moore,  in  May, 
1811,  resigned  his  presidency,  in  order  to  make 
room  for  some  one  who  would  have  it  in  his 
power  to  devote  himself  wholly  to  the  college ; 
and,  in  the  following  month,  the  Trustees  deter- 
mined to  divide  the  powers  and  duties  of  the 
presidential  office  between  a  president  and  an  of- 
ficer to  be  styled  Provost,  who,  in  the  absence  of 
the  President,  should  supply  his  place,  and  who, 
besides  exercising  the  like  general  superintend- 
ence with  the  President,  should  conduct  the 
classical  studies  of  the  Senior  Class.  The 
statutes  of  the  college  were  altered  accordingly, 
and,  on  the  17th  of  June,  1811,  the  Rev.  William 
Harris  was  elected  President,  and  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Mason,  Provost. 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  79 

It  seems  scarce  allowable  to  pass  entirely  un- 
noticed here,  an  occurrence  at  the  ensuing  com- 
mencement, in  the  month  of  August,  when  a 
generous  but  mistaken  zeal,  in  support  of  one  of 
the  candidates  for  the  honours  of  the  day,  led  to 
a  violent  resistance  of  the  authority  of  the  col- 
lege, and  a  tumultuous  interruption  of  its  most 
solemn  exercises,  which  caused  quite  a  public 
excitement  at  the  time,  and  became  the  subject  of 
much  angry  controversy.  The  generous  motives 
to  which  this  disturbance  was  ascribed,  and  the 
disfavour  with  which  many  viewed  the  recent 
change  in  the  government  of  the  college,  caused 
an  unjustifiable  rising  up  against  it,  to  wear,  at 
first,  the  appearance  of  a  correct  expression  of 
indignant  public  feeling ;  but  the  legal  investi- 
gation to  which  the  matter  was  subjected,  and 
the  powerful  mind  of  De  Witt  Clinton,  whose 
duty  it  became  to  take  cognizance  of  it  as  a 
judge,  stript  it  of  the  character  of  manly  resist- 
ance to  oppression,  and  placed  it  in  its  true  light, 
as  an  unjust  attempt  to  interrupt  a  necessary  al- 
though painful  act  of  discipline.  The  tide  of 
public  sentiment  was  consequently  turned,  and 
the  college  discipline  recovered  that  standing  in 
opinion,  which  must  ever  constitute  its  chief  sup- 
port.* 

*  See  Renwick's  Discourse  before  the  Alumni,  p.  28. 


80  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

On  the  14th  of  February,  1812,  the  Legisla- 
ture, in  accordance  with  the  petition  of  the 
Trustees,  passed  an  act  making  the  Provost  of 
the  college  for  the  time  being,  eligible  as  a  mem- 
ber of  their  Board,  and,  in  May  following,  the 
Provost,  Dr.  Mason,  was  elected  a  Trustee. 

On  the  25th  of  November,  1812,  Dr.  Kemp 
died,  after  having,  for  eight  and  twenty  years, 
discharged  with  great  ability  and  fidelity  the 
duties  of  professor  of  Mathematics  and  Natural 
Philosophy.  The  resolutions  of  the  Trustees  on 
this  occasion  manifest  their  high  respect  for  his 
memory,  and  their  concern  for  the  loss  which 
the  college  had  sustained. 

During  the  last  illness  of  Dr.  Kemp,  and  for 
some  time  after  his  decease,  the  duties  of  his 
office  were  divided  between  Mr.  James  Ren  wick , 
whose  services  were  voluntarily  and  gratuitously 
rendered,  and  Mr.  Henry  Vetake,  who  had  been 
engaged  by  the  Trustees,  but,  on  the  3d  of  May, 
1813,  Mr.  Robert  Adrain  was  elected  to  fill  the 
vacant  professorship.  The  purchase  by  the  col- 
lege of  the  late  professor's  books  made  a  valua- 
ble addition  to  its  library. 

On  the  1st  of  November,  1813,  the  Trustees 
agreed  to  incorporate  their  medical  school  with 
that  of  the  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons, 
a  new  institution  which  the  Regents  of  the  Uni- 
versity had  established  in  the  city  of  New- 
York. 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  81 

On  the  llth  of  July,  1816,  Dr.  Mason  resigned 
his  office  of  Provost,  and,  on  the  7th  of  Novem- 
ber following,  the  Trustees  determined  that  the 
powers  and  duties  of  that  office  should  devolve 
upon  the  President,  except  that  the  duty  of  con- 
ducting the  classical  studies  of  the  Senior  Class 
should  be  restored  to  the  Professor  of  the  Greek 
and  Latin  Languages. 

On  the  27th  of  February,  1817,  a  proposition; 
which  at  the  time  excited  a  very  lively  interest, 
and  much  discussion,  was  received  from  the 
Regents  of  the  University.  It  was  in  the  form  of 
a  resolution  of  their  Board,  enclosed  in  a  letter 
from  the  Vice  President  of  the  United  States, 
Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  to  the  Trustees  of  the 
College,  and  recommended,  as  that  gentleman, 
in  his  own  name,  also,  did,  a  consolidation  of  the 
college  property  and  funds  with  those  of  a  new 
institution,  which  it  was  proposed  to  establish  on 
Staten  Island,  and  to  which,  under  the  name  of 
Washington  College,  a  charter  had  been  granted. 

The  source  whence  this  proposal  came,  and 
the  channel  through  which  it  was  received,  en- 
titled it  to  much  consideration.  It  was  referred 
to  a  most  respectable  committee,  consisting  of 
Richard  Harison,  Rufus  King,  Brockholst  Liv- 
ingston, Bishop  Hobart,  and  William  Johnson, 
who  on  the  27th  of  the  following  month,  made  a 
report,  in  which  they  stated  at  length  the  rea- 
4* 


82  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

sons  why,  after  mature  deliberation,  they  deemed 
it  the  duty  of  the  Trustees,  not  to  accede  to  the 
proposal  of  the  Regents. 

The  mere  removal  of  the  college  was  no  new 
suggestion,  nor  was  the  expediency  of  such  a 
measure  considered  on  this  occasion  for  the  first 
time.  On  the  llth  of  November,  1802,  a  com- 
mittee had  been  appointed  to  inquire  and  report 
on  the  subject  of  finishing  the  new  wing  to  the 
college  building,  "  taking  into  view  the  proprie- 
ty of  removing  the  college  to  some  more  con- 
venient situation"  The  Trustees,  it  is  evident, 
were  then  wavering  in  doubt  as  to  the  expedien- 
cy of  expending  on  the  present  site  of  the  col- 
lege, moneys,  which  would,  in  case  of  its  removal, 
have  been  thrown  away.  The  same  uncertain- 
ty continuing  to  prevail,  a  committee,  appointed 
in  July,  1813,  was  afterwards  directed  to  inquire 
whether  an  eligible  site  for  a  college  could  be 
found,  "  at  a  distance  from  the  city  not  great- 
er than  Art-street ;"  and,  in  May  1816,  anoth- 
er was  appointed,  to  negotiate  for  the  purchase 
of  "  a  piece  of  ground  containing  thirty-two 
lots,  belonging  to  the  estate  of  Anthony  Bleeck- 
er,  deceased,  not  far  from  Col.  Varictfs  place" 
•*^This  uncertainty  as  to  the  continuance  of 
the  college  in  its  original  location,  appears  to 
have  exercised,  for  a  period  of  about  fourteen 
years,  a  sort  of  paralyzing  influence  on  the 


OF    COLUMBIA   COLLEGE.  83 

action  of  the  Trustees,  in  so  far  as  regarded  any 
extensive  or  effectual  repair  of  the  college  build- 
ings. They  manifested  a  constant  and  very 
zealous  care  of  the  internal  condition  of  the 
college,  and  that  appears  to  have  been  gradually 
improved  ;  but,  though  their  attention  was  from 
time  to  time  called  to  the  ruinous  and  deplorable 
state  of  its  exterior,  yet  that  every  year  grew 
worse  ;  and,  "  while  the  institution  was  gaining 
new  mental  vigour  and  life,  its  bodily  state  be- 
trayed symptoms  of  great  weakness  and  decay." 
The  reasoning,  however,  of  the  well  considered 
and  able  report  now  made,  and  unanimously 
adopted,  seems  to  have  confirmed  the  minds  of 
the  Trustees,  for  a  time  at  least,  as  to  the  perma- 
nent location  of  the  college,  and  no  longer  doubt- 
ful now  of  its  remaining  where  it  was,  they 
entered  at  once  on  measures  calculated  to  re- 
move that  unseemly  appearance,  and  to  supply 
those  wants,  which,  for  so  long  a  time,  had 
grieved  and  mortified  its  friends.  In  less  than 
six  weeks  after  the  settlement  of  this  question, 
the  visiting  committee  forcibly  pointed  out  in 
their  report,  the  apparent  neglect  and  decayed 
state  of  the  college  edifices  ;  from  which  the  in- 
stitution greatly  suffered  in  the  public  estimation ; 
and  the  many  wants  which  limited  its  useful- 
ness, and  prevented  its  maintaining  the  rank 
which  it  ought  to  hold  among  the  seminaries  of 
learning  in  our  country. 


84  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

An  attentive  examination  hereupon  made 
into  the  state  of  their  finances,  having  satisfied 
the  Trustees  that  they  might  safely  undertake 
extensive  repairs  of  the  old  edifice,  and  the  erec- 
tion of  additional  buildings  ;  they,  on  the  6th  of 
September,  1817,  agreed  upon  the  general  out- 
lines of  a  plan  for  that  purpose,  and  appointed  a 
committee  to  carry  it  into  effect. 

Two  wings,  each  fifty  feet  square,  and  each 
containing  two  houses  for  professors,  were  added 
at  the  extremities  of  the  original  edifice,  and  of 
this  older  building,  which  underwent  very  exten- 
sive alterations,  one  fourth  part  being  reserved  as 
a  dwelling-house,  the  residue  was  so  arranged  as 
to  furnish  a  chapel,  a  library,  and  all  the  required 
recitation  rooms. 

Shortly  before  the  adoption  of  this  plan,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Bowden,  who,  for  about  sixteen  years 
had  filled  the  office  of  Professor  of  Moral  Philos- 
ophy, Rhetoric  and  Belles-Lettres,  and  Logic,  died 
much  lamented.  The  Trustees  adopted  resolu- 
tions which  feelingly  expressed  their  high  sense 
of  the  long  and  faithful  services  of  the  deceased, 
and  of  the  learning  and  ability  with  which  he  had 
discharged  his  professional  duties,  together  with 
.their  veneration  for  the  example  displayed  by 
him  of  all  the  moral  and  Christian  virtues  ;  and 
neither  in  this  case  nor  in  that  of  Dr.  Kemp's 
death  did  they  limit  to  words  alone  the  evidence 
of  their  regard. 


OP    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  85 

On  the  3d  of  November,  1817,  the  Rev.  John 
M'Vickar  was  appointed  to  the  professorship 
which  Dr.  Bowden  had  held,  and.  at  the  same 
meeting,  with  a  view  to  relieve  Dr.  Wilson  of 
some  portion  of  the  duties  which  his  advancing 
age  began  to  render  burthensome,  it  was  resolved 
to  appoint  an  adjunct  professor  of  the  Greek  and 
Latin  Languages.  On  the  1st  day  of  the  follow- 
ing month  Mr.  Nathaniel  F.  Moore  was  elected 
to  that  office,  and  charged  with  the  duty  of  teach- 
ing those  languages  to  the  Freshman  Class. 

t.  Meanwhile  the  improvements  in  the  exterior 
of  the  college,  and  the  additions  that  had  been 
resolved  upon,  were  going  forward  ;  but  it  was 
not  until  the  2d  of  October  1820  that,  the  pro- 
jected alterations  being  completed,  the  building 
committee  handed  in  their  final  report.  During 
the  progress  of  the  work,  the  trustees  received  a 
valuable  contribution  towards  it,  by  a  grant  from 
the  State  of  $10,000  ;  and  the  same  Act,  passed 
February  19th,  1819,  added  also  to  the  value  of 
the  college  property,  by  rescinding  the  condition 
of  a  grant  which  had  been  made  five  years  be- 
fore, of  the  Botanic  Garden — a  piece  of  some 
twenty  acres  of  ground  about  three  miles  out  of 
town — a  condition  requiring  that  the  college 
should  be  removed  to  the  land  so  granted  with- 
in the  next  twelve  years. 

But  the  extensive  additions  and  alterations 


86  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

about  the  college  proved  so  expensive,  that  not- 
withstanding this  legislative  aid,  a  considerable 
debt  had  been  incurred. 

The  Trustees,  however,  would  not  be  deterred 
thereby  from  assuming  new  burthens,  which 
either  a  just  regard  for  the  claims  of  one  who 
had  long  served  the  college  with  fidelity,  or  the 
exigencies  of  its  discipline  and  course  of  study, 
seemed  to  lay  upon  them.  Accordingly,  when 
Dr.  Wilson  found  himself  obliged  by  increasing 
infirmities  wholly  to  resign  his  office,  as  in  Feb- 
ruary 1820  he  did,  they,  in  consideration  of  his 
"faithful  and  eminently  useful  services  during 
eight  and  twenty  years  •  of  his  advanced  age,  and 
the  peculiar  circumstances  of  his  situation," 
granted  him  a  liberal  annuity  for  life.  Being 
persuaded,  moreover,  that  the  welfare  of  the  col- 
lege required  a  division  of  the  professorship  of 
Mathematics  and  Natural  Philosophy  into  a  pro- 
fessorship of  Mathematics  and  Astronomy,  and 
a  professorship  of  Natural  and  Experimental 
Philosophy  and  Chemistry,  they  resolved  on 
such  division  accordingly ;  and,  leaving  Dr.  Ad- 
rain  charged  with  the  former,  appointed,  on  the 
4th  of  December,  1820,  Mr.  James  Renwick  to 
the  latter  office.  To  that  which  Dr.  Wilson  had 
resigned,  the  adjunct  professor,  Mr.  Nathaniel  F. 
Moore,  was,  in  February,  1820,  preferred,  and,  on 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  87 

the  6th  of  the  following  month,  Mr.  Charles 
Anthon  was  appointed  to  supply  his  place. 

The  college,  now  for  the  first  time,  saw  most 
of  her  offices  filled  by  her  own  alumni — Profes- 
sors M'Vickar,  Moore,  Anthon,  and  Renwick 
having  all  been  reared  within  her  walls,  while 
previous  to  1817,  only  three  of  all  who  had  ever 
held  office  in  the  college,  had  received  their  edu- 
cation there.  These  were  the  Rev.  John  Vardill, 
who  probably  never  entered  on  the  duties  of  his 
office,  the  Rev.  Benj.  Moore,  and  the  Rev.  John 
Bowden. 

We  find  nothing  in  the  history  of  the  college, 
for  a  period  now  of  several  years,  that  requires 
particular  notice.  The  minutes  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  Trustees  afford  evidence  of  an  inces- 
sant and  earnest  struggle  on  their  part  against 
difficulties  which  the  embarrassed  state  of  the 
college  and  its  yearly  increasing  debt  opposed  to 
their  making  it  as  useful  as  they  wished.  Year 
after  year  we  find  them  addressing  memorials  to 
the  Legislature,  urging  very  forcibly  their  wants, 
but  never  obtaining  any  adequate  relief.  They 
appear  to  be  engaged  in  a  perpetual  succession 
of  experiments,  which  might  perhaps  expose 
them  to  the  charge  of  fickleness,  but  that  we  per- 
ceive they  are  trying,  in  every  way  which  affords 
any  prospect  of  success,  to  solve  a  problem, 
which  will  not  perhaps  admit  of  satisfactory 


88  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

solution.  They  are  endeavouring,  with  very  lim- 
ited and  daily  lessening  means,  to  maintain  the 
reputation,  and  increase  the  usefulness  of  the  in- 
stitution committed  to  their  care.  This  will  ex- 
plain and  reconcile  some  seeming  incongruities, 
and  account  for  much  apparent  fluctuation,  in 
the  counsels  of  the  Board. 

On  the  3d  of  November  1823,  the  Honourable 
James  Kent  was  re-appointed  to  the  professorship 
of  Law,  which  he  had  five  and  twenty  years 
before  resigned,  after  having  then  held  it  five 
years.  The  present  appointment  of  this  accom- 
plished jurist  having  given  occasion  to  a  course 
of  lectures  at  the  college,  which  proved  the  germ 
of  his  learned  Commentaries,  was,  consequently, 
attended  with  results,  which,  while  they  reflect 
honour  on  the  college,  are  of  inestimable  value  to 
the  science  of  jurisprudence,  and  the  whole  legal 
profession. 

On  the  5th  of  September,  1825,  was  establish- 
ed, for  the  first  time  in  the  college,  a  professor- 
ship of  the  Italian  language  and  literature  ;  to 
which  the  Trustees  appointed  Signor  Lorenzo 
Da  Ponte,  a  gentleman  of  singular  talent,  a  schol- 
ar and  poet  of  no  ordinary  merit. 

On  the  7th  of  November,  in  the  same  year, 
Dr.  Adrain  resigned  his  professorship  of  Mathe- 
matics and  Astronomy.  In  the  letter  offering  his 
resignation,  he,  in  the  warmest  terms  possible, 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  89 

recommended  as  his  successor  Henry  J.  Ander- 
son, M.  I).,  an  alumnus  of  the  college,  who  on  the 
llth  of  the  same  month  was  elected  in  his  place. 

In  April,  1826,  a  proposal  was  received  from 
Doctors  Hosack,  Macneven,  Mott,  and  Francis, 
for  the  reorganization  of  a  Faculty  of  Physic  in 
the  college.  The  proposition  was  referred  to  a 
committee,  who,  with  certain  qualifications,  re- 
ported in  favour  of  the  scheme  ;  but  it  was  never- 
theless rejected, 

In  October,  1827,  a  new  body  of  statutes  for 
the  government  of  the  college  was  adopted,  and 
in  December  of  the  same  year  the  Trustees  re- 
solved to  establish,  under  their  patronage,  a 
grammar  school,  of  which  the  Board  of  the  col- 
lege should  have  the  superintendence  and  con- 
trol. The  plan,  however,  failed  altogether  of 
success,  until  after  it  had  received  some  modifi- 
cations in  the  month  of  April  following  ;  nor, 
even  then,  did  it,  for  a  long  time,  succeed  in  any 
great  degree.  In  the  spring  of  1829,  measures 
were  taken  to  erect  a  suitable  building  for  its  ac- 
commodation. This  was  finished  and  occupied 
in  the  month  of  October  following,  and  the  Trus- 
tees made  an  agreement  with  Mr.  John  D.  Ogil- 
by,  as  master  of  the  school,  under  the  control 
and  direction  of  the  College  Board. 

In  April,  1827,  a  proposition  was  made  by  the 
New- York  Athenaeum  and  the  New-York  Soci- 


90  AN   HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

ety  Library,  for  an  union  of  their  libraries  with 
that  of  the  college  ;  but  this  scheme,  though  kept 
in  view,  and  a  subject  of  negotiation  during  eight 
or  ten  months,  failed  at  length  of  being  so  ar- 
ranged as  to  suit  all  parties. 

In  October,  1829,  Dr.  Harris  died,  after  being 
in  the  presidential  office  for  above  eighteen  years  ; 
but,  with  full  charge  of  the  college  for  only  the 
last  thirteen  of  them ;  during  all  which  time  he 
had  manifested  the  most  entire  and  zealous  de- 
votion to  its  interests. 

On  the  9th  of  December  following  his  de- 
cease, the  Honourable  William  A.  Duer,  LL.  D., 
was  elected  in  his  place. 

On  the  6th  of  the  following  month  of  Janu- 
ary, 1830,  a  plan  for  the  establishment  of  an 
University  in  this  city,  which  had,  for  some  time 
previous,  been  a  subject  of  conversation,  and  dis- 
cussed in  private  circles,  was  more  fully  devel- 
oped, in  a  paper  read  at  a  public  meeting  of  its 
friends  and  soon  after  printed.  The  advocates 
of  this  scheme  disclaimed  all  thought  of  inter- 
fering with  "  the  many  respectable  colleges  situ- 
ated in  different  parts  of  our  country ;"  for  many 
of  which  they  professed  to  entertain  a  high  re- 
spect, "and  for  none  of  them  a  more  sincere 
good  will  than  for  Columbia  College."  But  these 
institutions,  "chiefly  designed  to  prepare  young 
men  for  what  are  termed  the  learned  professions," 


OF    COLUMBIA   COLLEGE.  91 

were,  by  no  means,  suited,  as  they  thought,  to 
supply  the  want,  which  they  imagined  to  exist, 
not  only  in  this  city,  but  throughout  the  country, 
of  some  more  general,  more  liberal,  more  practi- 
cal instruction  than  could  at  present  be  obtained. 
They  proposed,  therefore,  to  establish  an  Univer- 
sity on  a  broad  and  liberal  foundation,  which 
should  correspond  with  the  spirit  and  demands 
of  our  age  and  country — one,  where  young  men 
who  sought  a  higher  instruction  than  that 
which  the  ordinary  schools  supply,  might  be 
able  to  obtain  it,  without  possessing  any  know- 
ledge of  Latin  and  Greek,  without  being  obliged 
to  "employ  a  large  portion  of  the  most  valuable 
period  of  their  lives  in  pursuits  that  will  be  of 
no  essential  service  to  them." 

The  public  was  urged  to  remove  from  the 
city  of  New- York,  what,  if  in  this  age  of  light 
and  improvement  it  should  be  longer  tolerated, 
might  well  be  considered  a  reproach — the  want 
of  an  institution  where  an  inquiring  mind  might 
obtain  instruction  in  the  higher  departments  of 
knowledge — of  useful  knowledge. 

It  was  supposed  by  these  gentlemen,  that, 
with  the  then  population  of  our  city,  it  would  be 
reasonable  to  count  upon  eight  or  ten  hundred 
candidates  for  instruction  in  all  the  courses  to  be 
given  in  such  an  University.  The  comprehen- 
sive scheme  of  this  new  institution  aimed  at  an 
union  within  itself  of  all  the  literary  and  scien- 


92  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

tific  bodies  in  the  city,  except  only  Columbia 
College,  which,  it  was  suggested,  might,  perhaps, 
more  advantageously  continue  to  maintain  its 
separate  existence,  devoting  itself  to  the  higher 
interests  of  classical  learning,  and  to  the  exclu- 
sive training  of  young  men  for  the  learned  pro- 
fessions. The  University  was  designed  to  cover 
a  ground  not  occupied  by  the  College,  nor  any 
other  institution  in  the  city,  and  to  execute  a  de- 
sign, to  which  "no  single  denomination  of  per- 
sons" was  competent ; — for  which,  of  course, 
Columbia  College  was  unsuited,  since  (as  was 
understood,)  "  its  President  must  of  necessity  be 
selected  from  one  particular  denomination  of 
Christians"  It  was,  however,  acknowledged  as 
due  to  that  Institution,  to  say,  that  no  religious 
instruction,  on  the  peculiar  tenets  of  that  denomi- 
nation, was  given  there,  and  that  no  immunities 
of  any  kind  were  extended  to  young  men  of  any 
particular  denomination. 

<~  This  project,  in  which  many  highly  respect- 
able and  influential  men  were  zealously  engaged, 
and  which  appealed  to  well-known  prejudices  of 
the  crowd,  was,  of  course,  calculated  to  alarm  the 
friends  of  Columbia  College,  and  its  Trustees 
were  at  once  aroused  to  great  activity.  Exten- 
sive modifications  of  the  college  system  were 
adopted — the  existing  course  of  study,  being  pre- 
served entire,  was  denominated  the  Full  Course, 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  93 

and  another,  in  addition  thereto,  was  established, 
which  was  called  the  Scientific  and  Literary 
Course — and  this  was  open  to  others  besides  ma- 
triculated students  ;  all  persons  whatever,  and 
to  such  extent  as  they  thought  fit,  being  permit- 
ted to  attend.  The  actual  professors  of  the  col- 
lege were  encouraged  to  form  classes  for  the  in- 
struction of  others  besides  matriculated  students, 
and  new  lectureships  were  established  in  all  the 
departments  which  the  friends  of  the  University 
had  insisted  on  as  being  of  practical  import- 
ance. 

The  lecturers  were  to  fix  and  to  receive  the 
fees  of  admission  to  their  respective  courses, 
which  were  to  be  open  to  all  who  might  think 
proper  to  attend.  With  a  view  to  silence  un- 
founded clamours  and  the  objections  urged  against 
Columbia  College,  as  being  a  sectarian  institu- 
tion, the  Trustees  adopted  several  new  statutes  of 
a  very  liberal  character,  which  still  continue  in 
force,  and,  in  substance,  declare  that  every  reli- 
gious denomination  shall  be  entitled  to  have  al- 
ways one  student,  designed  for  the  ministry, 
educated  in  the  college  free  of  all  charges  of  tui- 
tion ; — that 

Any  person  who  founds  a  scholarship  to  the 
amount  of  $1000,  shall  be  entitled  to  have  always 
one  student  educated  in  the  college,  free  of  all 
charges  of  tuition.  This  right  being  transferable, 


94  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

and  the  scholarships  to  bear  such  names  as  their 
respective  founders  designate  ; — that, 

Any  religious  denomination,  or  any  person  or 
persons  who  shall  endow  a  professorship  in  the 
classics,  in  political,  mathematical,  or  physical 
science,  or  in  the  literature  of  any  of  the  ancient 
or  modern  languages,  to  the  amount  of  $20,000, 
shall  forever  have  the  right  of  nominating  a  pro- 
fessor for  the  same,  subject  to  the  approbation  of 
the  Board  of  Trustees ;  and  such  professor  shall 
hold  his  office  by  the  same  tenure  as  the  other 
professors  of  the  college  ;  the  nomination  to  be 
made  by  the  authorized  representatives  of  the  re- 
ligious community,  or  by  the  person  or  persons 
who  shall  make  the  endowment,  or  such 
person  or  persons  as  he  or  they  may  designate  ; 
the  proceeds  of  the  endowment  to  be  appro- 
priated to  the  salary  of  the  professor. 

As  further  proof  of  the  liberality  of  the  college, 
and  her  desire  to  show  herself  identified  with 
the  interests  of  the  community, — which,  it  was 
alleged,  she  had  not  been, — it  was  resolved,  that 
the  Corporation  of  the  City  of  New-York,  the 
Trustees  of  the  New- York  Public  School  Society, 
the  Trustees  or  Directors  of  the  Clinton  Hall 
Association,  of  the  Mercantile  Library  Associa- 
tion, of  the  Mechanic  and  Scientific  Institution, 
the  General  Society  of  Mechanics  and  Trades- 
men of  the  City  of  New- York,  and  such  other 


OP    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  95 

Societies  as  the  Trustees  may  from  time  to  time 
designate,  shall  each  be  entitled  to  have  always 
two  students  educated  in  the  college  free  of  all 
charges  of  tuition. 

And  these  statutes  have  not  been  suffered  to 
remain  a  dead  letter,  or  without  effect,  but  have 
afforded  to  a  number  of  youths  the  means  of 
obtaining  a  liberal  education,  which  straitened 
pecuniary  circumstances  would  have  denied  to 
them.  The  college  is  at  this  moment  educating, 
gratuitously,  seventeen  students,  who  have  been 
preferred  to  various  of  these  scholarships. 

Under  this  state  of  things,  the  friends  of  Co- 
lumbia College,  with  good  reason,  denied  the 
necessity  of  a  new  institution,  which  must  divide 
the  already  scanty  patronage  of  the  public  ;  see- 
ing that  Columbia  College  was  not  only  willing 
to  undertake  all  that  the  advocates  of  the  new 
scheme  professed  to  have  in  view,  but  being  al- 
ready endowed  and  organized,  was  better  able  to 
accomplish  it,  and  would  be  rendered  vastly 
more  so  if  aided  with  even  a  small  portion  of  the 
funds  that  must  be  needed  for  the  adequate  en- 
dowment of  an  University. 

On  the  part  of  the  college,  it  was  plainly  in- 
timated by  her  friends,  that,  unable  to  contend 
with  an  institution  which  should  enjoy  the  con- 
centrated patronage  of  our  city,  she  might  find 
herself  compelled  to  become,  in  fact,  what  she 


96  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

was,  as  yet,  only  by  injurious  imputation,  an 
Episcopal  College  ;  and  the  citizens  of  New- York 
were  invited  to  avail  themselves  of  the  opportu- 
nity they  then  had,  to  prevent  for  ever  her  being 
thus  devoted  to  sectarian  purposes,  and  to  make 
her  absolutely  a  city  college. 

On  the  2d  of  February  a  committee  was  ap- 
pointed, on  the  part  of  the  Trustees,  to  confer 
with  one  on  the  part  of  the  proposed  University  ; 
but  their  conference  resulted  in  no  agreement. 
On  the  following  day  a  plan  was  approved  by 
the  Trustees,  which  had  been  already,  in  an  in- 
formal way,  submitted  to  the  Common  Council 
of  the  city,  and  which,  had  it  been  agreed  upon 
and  carried  out,  would  have  made  the  college,  to 
all  intents,  a  city  institution.  At  this  same  meet- 
ing, the  Trustees  further  resolved  to  offer  to  the 
Navy  Department  of  the  United  States,  upon  cer- 
tain specified  terms,  the  use  of  Columbia  College 
and  the  services  of  its  professors  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  the  midshipmen  and  other  naval  officers  on 
this  station.  This  proposal  was  favourably  re- 
ceived by  Commodore  Chauncey,  who  then  com- 
manded here,  and  was  by  him  communicated  to 
the  Department  at  Washington  ;  but  like  the  last 
mentioned  proposition  to  the  City  Council,  it  re- 
sulted in  nothing  of  advantage. 

At  this  same  meeting,  too,  the  freshly  en- 
kindled zeal  of  the  Trustees  was  further  shown 


OF    COLUMBIA   COLLEGE.  97 

in  the  appointment  of  several  new  professors. 
The  Rev.  Samuel  H.  Turner.  D.  DM  was  elected 
Professor  of  the  Hebrew  Language  and  Litera- 
ture— Mariano  Velasquez  de  la  Cadena,  Profes- 
sor of  the  Spanish  Language  and  Literature — the 
Rev.  Manton  Eastburn,  Lecturer  on  Poetry,  and 
Wm.  H.  Ellet,  M.  D.,  Lecturer  on  Elementary 
Chemistry. 

During  the  height  of  this  excitement  a  very 
great  improvement  in  the  College  grounds  on 
Chapel-street,  as  it  was  then  called,  an  improve- 
ment which  the  Trustees  had  for  a  long  time 
had  in  contemplation,  was  finally  resolved  on, 
and  soon  afterwards  completed,  with  a  result 
which  cannot  be  appreciated  fully  but  by  those 
who  are  able  to  recall  to  mind  the  narrow  shabby 
street,  with  the  beggarly  hovels  along  both  sides 
of  it,  which  were  cleared  away  to  make  room  for 
(he  present  College  Place. 

In  November,  1830,  Professor  Anthon  took 
charge  of  the  College  Grammar  School,  as  its 
Rector,  under  an  agreement  which  was  variously 
modified  from  time  to  time  until  the  1st  of  May, 
1833,  when  the  arrangement  was  concluded 
which  is  still  in  force.  Upon  the  appointment  of 
Professor  Anthou  as  Rector  of  the  Grammar 
School,  Mr.  J.  L.  O'Sullivan  was  employed  as 
classical  instructor  of  the  Freshman  Class,  and 
Dr.  Ellet  as  instructor  of  the  Sophomore  Class  in 
5 


98  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

Elementary  Chemistry  ;  and  in  May,  1832,  a  dis- 
tinct professorship  of  this  department  being  es- 
tablished, Dr.  Ellet  was  appointed  to  fill  it.  He 
held  this  appointment,  however,  for  only  one 
year,  when  new  arrangements,  dictated  by  the 
necessity  of  reducing  the  expenses  of  the  college, 
determined  the  Trustees  to  discontinue  his  pro- 
fessorship. They  did  not  do  so,  though,  without 
expressing  their  high  sense  of  the  skill  and  as- 
siduity with  which  he  had  discharged  its  duties, 
and  adding  a  handsome  gratuity  to  his  stipulated 
salary. 

In  October,  1835,  Professor  Moore  having  re- 
signed his  office,  Dr.  Anthon,  the  Jay-Professor, 
(as  since  February,  1830,  he  had  been  styled,) 
was  elected  in  his  place,  and  Mr.  Robert  G.  Ver- 
milye,  an  alumnus  of  the  College,  was  appointed 
classical  instructor  of  the  Freshman  Class,  Li- 
brarian, and  Secretary  of  the  College  Board. 

On  a  revision  of  the  statutes,  in  the  year  1836, 
both  courses  of  study  pursued  in  the  college, 
were  further  enlarged;  and  the  Scientific  and 
Literary  Course  in  particular,  was  defined  arid 
materially  extended.  And  in  order  that  this 
course,  as  well  as  the  scientific  branches  of  the 
Full  Course,  might  be  conducted  in  the  most  ef- 
ficient manner,  the  Trustees  appropriated  the 
sum  of  $10,000  for  the  purchase  of  additional 


OP    COLUMBIA   COLLEGE.  99 

apparatus,  as  well  as  for  adding  to  the  library 
the  requisite  books  of  reference  and  illustration.* 
u  On  the  13th  of  April,  1837,  was  celebrated, 
with  much  solemnity,  the  semi-centennial  anni- 
versary of  the  re-organization  of  the  College  un- 
der Trustees  of  its  own.  The  Trustees,  Presi- 
dent, Professors,  Alumni,  and  Students  of  the 
College,  united  in  measures  calculated  to  give  in- 
terest to  the  day.  In  the  morning,  at  St.  John's 
Chapel,  an  Oration  and  a  Poem  were  delivered, 
before  a  numerous  audience,  by  Alumni  of  the 
College  previously  appointed.  Odes  in  several 
languages,  composed  and  arranged  to  music  for 
the  occasion,  were  sung ;  there  were  suitable  re- 
ligious services,  and  appropriate  music,  and  hon- 
orary degrees  were  conferred  on  several  distin- 
guished gentlemen,  selected  by  a  committee 
specially  appointed  for  that  purpose.  In  the 
evening  the  college  was  decorated,  illuminated, 
and  thrown  open  for  the  reception  and  entertain- 
ment of  a  large  number  of  invited  guests.  :> 

In  January,  1838,  the  Trustees  made  a  valua- 
ble addition  to  the  College  Library  by  purchasing 
that  of  their  former  professor,  Moore,  whom  they 

*  During  the  preceding  year,  1835,  the  Trustees  had  increased 
the  means  of  instruction  belonging  to  the  college  by  the  purchase 
of  two  collections  of  minerals,  at  an  aggregate  cost  of  $2,300, 
and  since  then  there  has  been  added  to  their  cabinet  a  valuable 
geological  collection,  presented  by  the  State. 


100  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

also  appointed  Librarian,  and  as  such  he  was, 
for  about  a  year,  busily  employed  in  making  a 
new  arrangement  and  a  catalogue  of  the  whole 
library,  and  placing  this  department  of  the  col- 
lege on  a  better  and  more  serviceable  footing 
than  before.  On  his  resignation  Mr.  George  C. 
Schaeffer  was  appointed  in  his  place. 

In  February,  1839,  a  proposal  for  the  re-es- 
tablishment of  a  school  of  medicine  connected 
with  the  college  was  received  from  the  professors 
who  had  then  recently  constituted  the  Medical 
Faculty  of  the  New- York  City  University.  This 
proposal  was  fully  considered,  and  rather  favour- 
ably viewed  by  the  Trustees  ;  but  resulted  finally 
in  no  agreement. 

In  May,  1842,  President  Duer  found  himself 
obliged,  by  severe  and  long  continued  illness,  to 
resign  his  office ;  and  on  the  1st  of  August  fol- 
lowing, Nathaniel  F.  Moore,  LL.  D.,  was  ap- 
pointed in  his  place. 

In  April,  1843,  a  professorship  of  the  German 
Language  and  Literature  was  established  on  an 
endowment  of  $20,000,  bequeathed  for  that  pur- 
pose by  Frederick  Gebhard,  Esq.,  and  in  the 
month  of  June  following,  John  Louis  Tellkampf, 
J.  U.  D.,  of  Gottingen,  was  appointed  Gebhard 
Professor. 

On  a  revision  of  the  statutes  in  July,  of  this 
year,  the  Scientific  and  Literary  Course,  after 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  101 

an  unsuccessful  experiment  of  thirteen  years, 
was  finally  abolished.  As  distinguished  from 
the  Full  Course  it  had  never  found  much  favour 
with  the  public.  There  was  not  a  single  student 
engaged  in  it  at  this  time,  and  during  the  last 
two  years  there  had  been,  in  all,  but  four. 

Another  change  now  made,  and  an  important 
one.  was  the  adoption  of  the  German  Language 
and  Literature  as  part  of  the  ordinary  academic 
coarse. 

The  Trustees  were  determined  to  this  step, 
not  only  by  the  great  and  daily  increasing  value 
of  the  German  language,  but  also  by  their  per- 
suasion that  the  mere  study  of  it  may  be  regard- 
ed as  a  mental  discipline  of  the  highest  value, 
and  consequently  as  subserving  the  principal  de- 
sign of  the  college,  which  is  rather  to  educate 
than  to  instruct. 

Since  the  appointment  of  a  Gebhard  Profes- 
sor, several  other  changes  have  been  made,  as 
regards  the  persons  engaged  in  conducting  the 
sub  graduate  college  course. 

Upon  the  resignation,  in  1843,  of  the  Rev. 
Robert  G.  Vermilye,  Mr.  Henry  Drisler,  jun.,  an 
alumnus  of  the  College,  received  a  temporary 
appointment,  as  classical  instructor  of  the  Fresh- 
man Class,  and  was  afterwards  retained  in  office, 
with  the  title  of  Adjunct  Professor,  which  his 
predecessor  had  when  he  resigned. 


102  AN   HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

In  June,  1843,  Dr.  Anderson  resigned  the 
professorship  of  Mathematics  and  Astronomy, 
and  in  the  following  month,  the  Rev.  Charles 
W.  Hackley,  S.  T.  D.,  was  appointed  in  his 
place. 

In  December,  1844,  Mr.  J.  W.  S.  Hows  was 
appointed  professor  of  Elocution,  with  the  duty 
of  giving  instruction  therein,  to  the  Freshman 
Class. 

As  regards  the  present  state  and  prospects  of 
the  college,  they  are  such  as  may  encourage  its 
friends.  The  Trustees  have  lately  entered  upon 
measures,  which,  with  some  sacrifice  of  that 
ornament  hitherto  derived  to  the  college  edifice 
and  its  vicinity,  from  the  free  space  and  open 
grounds  behind  it,  promise  to  relieve  the  institu- 
tion, after  a  few  years,  from  the  pecuniary  em- 
barrassments which  have,  for  a  long  time,  im- 
peded in  some  degree  its  useful  action. 

The  great  extension  of  our  city  towards  the 
North,  and  the  so  general  removal  of  its  inhabit- 
ants in  the  same  direction,  have  threatened  such 
serious  injury  to  the  college,  that  the  question  of 
its  own  removal  was  not  long  ago  revived  ;  but 
the  number  of  students  it  already  receives  from 
Brooklyn,  Jamaica,  and  Staten  Island, — the 
rapidly  growing  population,  more  especially  of 
Brooklyn,  and  the  increasing  facility  of  commu- 
nication between  the  neighbouring  islands  and 


OP   COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  103 

the  college,  authorize  the  hope  that  the  patronage 
it  will  obtain  from  those  quarters  will,  in  a  great 
measure,  countervail  the  inconvenience  of  its 
location,  considered  merely  as  regards  the  city  of 
New- York,  and  that  the  number  of  its  students, 
which  has  been  gradually  advancing  for  the  last 
three  years,  will  hereafter  be  better  proportioned 
to  its  just  claims,  and  to  the  great  advantages 
which  its  academic  course  holds  out  to  studious 
youth. 

The  college  has  the  greater  reason  to  expect 
support  from  the  quarters  mentioned,  because 
students  who  come  thence  will  experience  in 
greater  degree  than  those  residing  in  New-York? 
the  benefits  of  a  system  which,  leaving  students 
to  the  comfort,  the  security,  and  the  salutary  in- 
fluences of  their  home,  unites  parental  discipline 
and  supervision  with  that  which  the  college 
exercises. 

A  writer  on  the  state  of  education  in  New- 
York,  about  thirty  years  ago,  viewing  this  mat- 
ter in  a  different  light,  supposes  one  cause  of  the 
small  number  of  students  resorting  to  Columbia 
College,  may  he  the  preference  given  to  institu- 
tions which  require  residence  within  their  walls. 
There  may  be  truth  in  this  conjecture,  since  this 
preference  is  not  unusual,  but  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  the  grounds  for  it  are  often  such  as" 
will  not  bear  examination.  A  father  who  finds 


104  AN    HISTORICAL    SKETCH 

his  son  difficult  to  manage,  is  easily  persuaded 
to  send  him  abroad  for  his  education  ;  and,  wil- 
ling to  flatter  himself  that  all  is  going  well,  so 
long  as  he  neither  sees  nor  hears  any  thing  to 
the  contrary,  he  quiets  his  conscience  by  this 
endeavour  to  devolve  on  others  the  great  respon- 
sibility that  he  ought  to  leai\  or  at  least  to  share 
himself. 

The  reverend  and  learned  head  of  a  neighbour- 
ing University,  a  profound  writer  and  thinker  on 
subjects  of  morals  as  well  as  education,  in  his 
"  Thoughts  on  the  Present  Collegiate  System  of 
the  United  S.'ates,"  argues  very  forcibly  against 
the  plan  of  residence  within  the  college,  even  for 
students  sent  to  it  from  abroad. 

The  plan  which  he  prefers  may  perhaps  be 
suited  for  a  country  town  ;  but  neither  residence 
within  the  college,  nor,  at  the  student's  choice, 
without  it,  would  be  safe  for  those  sent  from  a 
distance  to  the  city  of  New-York.  Yet  the 
temptations  and  dangers  even  of  this  great  city, 
are  less  to  youths  who  live  under  the  anxious 
watch  of  a  parent's  eye  at  home,  than  are  those 
of  the  smallest  village  to  young  men  abandoned 
to  themselves  and  unrestrained,  as  experience 
shows  they  are,  and  as  they  must  inevitably  be, 
when  sent  to  any  college  whatever  in  this  coun- 
try to  reside. 

We  think  it  therefore  an  inestimable  advan- 


OF    COLUMBIA    COLLEGE.  1U5 

tage  attending  the  system  here  adopted,  that 
youth  may  obtain  a  collegiate  education  without 
a  separation  from  their  natural  friends,  or  any 
check  to  the  expansion  of  those  virtues  and 
affections  which  are  the  peculiar  growth  of  the 
domestic  circle — of  the  family — which,  with  all 
its  sympathies  of  relationship  and  society,  is 
the  natural  situation  for  the  young. 


APPENDIX. 


IN  the  Historical  sketch  that  has  been  given 
of  Columbia  College,  the  Minutes  of  the  Govern- 
ors, the  Regents  and  the  Trustees,  who  succes- 
sively had  charge  of  the  Institution  under  its 
different  names,  and  the  College  Matricula,  have 
been  regarded  as  of  paramount  authority,  and 
adhered  to  whenever,  as  in  some  few  particulars, 
there  appeared  to  be  a  discrepancy  between 
them  and  other  respectable  memorials  of  facts 
relating  to  the  college.  From  one  of  these — 
Chandler's  Life  of  Johnson — and  from  the  source 
which  chiefly  it  was  taken,  the  Rev.  Dr.  John- 
son's autograph  memoir  of  himself,  kindly  com- 
municated by  his  venerable  grandson,  the  author 
has  had  much  assistance ;  and  he  desires  here 
to  make  a  general  acknowledgment  to  various 
other  persons,  whose  very  words  he  is  conscious 
that  he  has  sometimes  adopted  as  his  own,  al- 
though he  could  not  now  in  every  instance  point 
them  out. 

He  is  indebted  for  several  interesting  facts  to 
the  "Address  delivered  before  the  Alumni  of 


APPENDIX.  107 

Columbia  College  in  1825,  by  C.  C.  Moore,"  and 
has  been  greatly  guided  by  it  in  his  narrative. 

To  the  Hon.  Gulian  C.  Yerplanck  his  obliga- 
tions are  numerous,  and  more  especially  through- 
out this  Appendix,  since  a  great  portion  of  it  is 
derived  from  that  gentleman's  Address  delivered 
before  the  Philolexian  and  Peithologian  Societies 
of  Columbia  College ;  from  the  Biographical 
Notice  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Johnson  in  the  Church- 
man's Magazine,  that  of  Dr.  Cooper  in  the  Ana- 
lectic  Magazine,  and  an  Obituary  Notice  of  Dr. 
Wm.  Samuel  Johnson,  communicated  to  the 
author  by  his  son,  which  are  all  ascribed  to  the 
pen  of  Mr.  Verplanck.  What  is  stated,  however, 
in  this  Appendix  of  the  last  named  Dr.  Johnson, 
is  derived  in  part  from  Mr.  Irving's  Address 
delivered  before  the  Alumni  of  Columbia  Col- 
lege. 

The  author  is  under  obligations  also  to  Mr. 
Sedgwick's  "Memoir  of  William  Livingston," 
and  especially  for  that  it  first  led  him  to  consult 
the  Journals  of  the  Colonial  Assembly,  where 
much  relating  to  Mr.  Livingston's  controversy 
with  King's  College,  is  contained. 

At  several  important  periods  of  his  narrative 
the  author  has  confined  himself  to  the  mere  sur- 
face of  affairs,  as  well  from  unwillingness  as 
from  inability  to  explore  the  intricate  and  trou- 
bled passages  that  will  present  themselves  before 


103  APPENDIX. 

the  minds  of  readers  who  remember  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  City  University;  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  Provost  in  the  college,  and  the  next 
following  commencement ;  or  of  the  few,  if  in- 
deed there  shall  be  any,  who  are  able  to  recall 
the  organization  of  the  Medical  Faculty  in  1792. 
The  biographical  notices  which  follow,  were 
embodied  in  the  preceding  sketch,  as  originally 
drawn  out ;  but  it  has  been  thought  better  now 
to  place  them  here. 

PAGE   46. 

*  *  "  surrounded  by  numerous  old  friends,  he  passed 
the  quiet  remainder  of  his  days." 

Dr.  Johnson,  on  his  return  to  Stratford,  re- 
sumed the  duties  of  a  parish  priest,  and  devoted 
himself  to  study  and  to  his  clerical  functions 
with  the  same  zeal  as  forty  years  before.  "  Oc- 
cupied in  works  of  piety  and  usefulness,  his 
virtuous  and  venerable  age  glided  peacefully 
along,  until  the  6th  of  January  1772,  when  after 
a  very  short  and  apparently  slight  indisposition, 
he  expired  in  his  chair  without  a  struggle  or  a 
groan." 

The  following  inscription  on  a  neat  monu- 
ment erected  over  his  remains,  in  the  Episcopal 
bury  ing-ground  at  Stratford,  is  from  Dr.  Cooper's 
pen: 


APPENDIX.  109 

fit.  S. 

SAMUELIS    JOHNSON,    D.  D. 

Coliegii  Regalis,  Novi  Eboraci, 

Prsesidis  primi, 
Et  hujus  Ecclesise  nuper  Rectoris. 

NATUS  DIE  14to   OCTOB.  1696. 
OBIIT  6to  JAN.  1772, 

If  decent  dignity,  and  modest  mien, 

The  cheerful  heart,  and  countenance  serene ; 

If  pure  religion  and  unsullied  truth, 

His  age's  solace,  and  his  search  in  youth, 

In  charity,  through  all  the  race  he  ran, 

Still  wishing  well,  and  doing  good  to  man ; 

If  learning  free  from  pedantry  and  pride; 

If  faith  and  virtue  walking  side  by  side; 

If  well  to  mark  his  being's  aim  and  end, 

To  shine  through  life  the  father  and  the  friend  ; 

If  these  ambition  in  thy  soul  can  raise, 

Excite  thy  reverence,  or  demand  thy  praise, 

Reader,  ere  yet  thou  quit  this  earthly  scene, 

Revere  his  name,  and  be  what  he  has  been. 

Dr.  Johnson  "  was  remarkable  for  a  very  uni- 
form and  placid  temper,  which  was  displayed  in 
habitual  beneficence  and  hospitality."  He  is 
said  to  have  been  of  a  mild  and  pleasing  coun- 
tenance, and  such,  indeed,  he  appears  in  the 
portrait  of  him,  presented  to  the  college  by  the 
painter  Kilbourn,  and  which  hangs  in  its  library. 


110  APPENDIX. 

The  different  views  which,  in  the  result  of  his 
studious  investigations,  he  had  come  to  entertain 
on  several  important  points,  and  the  fact  that 
many  of  his  early  friends,  from  whom  in  after 
life  he  differed,  did  but  adhere  to  opinions  which 
had  originally  been  his  own,  contributed,  together 
with  his  gentle  character,  to  give  to  his  contro- 
versial pieces,  which  were  numerous,  a  tone  of 
mildness  and  urbanity  not  often  found  in  writ- 
ings of  that  sort. 

Dr.  Johnson  published  in  1746  a  brief  system 
of  morality,  and  soon  afterwards  a  Compendium 
of  Logic  and  Metaphysics ;  which  two  treatises 
were  so  approved  by  Dr.  Franklin  that  he  re- 
printed them  together  in  an  octavo  volume  in 
1752.  This  led  to  a  correspondence  between 
him  and  Dr.  Johnson,  whom  he  repeatedly  con- 
sulted as  to  a  plan  of  education  for  the  college  of 
Philadelphia,  of  which  he  would  gladly  have 
persuaded  him  to  accept  the  Presidency. 

The  work  so  approved  by  Dr.  Franklin  was 
soon  after  reprinted  in  London,  where  also  a 
third  edition,  corrected  and  enlarged  by  the  au- 
thor, with  a  preface  by  Dr.  Smith  (afterwards 
Provost  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania)  ap- 
peared in  a  very  neat  form  in  1754. 

A  little  work  of  Dr.  Johnson's  was  publish- 
ed in  London  in  1757,  entitled,  "An  English  and 
Hebrew  Grammar,  being  the  first  short  rudiments 


APPENDIX.  Ill 

of  the  two  languages  taught  together,  to  which 
is  added  a  Synopsis  of  all  the  Parts  of  Learning." 


PAGE  48. 

*  *  "  many  other  illustrious  men,  whose  enviable 
reputations  now  constitute  the  richest  property  of  their 
country." 

Among  those  alluded  to  in  this  general  way, 
there  were — even  of  the  five  graduated  at  the 
same  time  with  Peter  Van  Schaack  and  Gouv- 
erneur  Morris — three  at  least  who  seem  entitled 
to  particular  mention. 

One  of  them,  Benjamin  Moore,  was  the  last 
president  of  King's  College,  having  been  appoint- 
ed to  that  office  ad  interim,  during  the  tempora- 
ry absence  (as  it  was  supposed  to  be)  of  Dr. 
Cooper.  On  the  revival  of  the  college  under  its 
new  name,  and  while  its  affairs  were  adminis- 
tered by  the  Regents,  he  was  professor  of  Rhet- 
oric and  Logic  ;  and  in  1801,  being  then  Bishop 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  Dio- 
cese of  New-York,  he  was  again,  after  an  inter- 
val of  six  and  twenty  years,  appointed  to  the 
presidency  of  Columbia  College,  which  he  held 
until  his  resignation  in  1811.  As  Bishop  he  suc- 
ceeded to  Samuel  Provoost,  who  also  was  an 
alumnus  of  King's  College,  graduated  at  its  first 
commencement. 


112  APPENDIX. 

Bishop  Moore  was  distinguished  for  an  un- 
affected simplicity  of  character,  accompanied, 
however,  with  uniform  prudence  and  an  accu- 
rate knowledge  of  mankind — for  a  meekness 
"  not  easily  provoked,"  but  which  pursued  the 
dictates  of  duty  with  persevering  firmness,  and 
for  an  ardent  piety,  yet  free  from  ostentation, 
and  ever  under  the  control  of  sober  judgment. 

Another  of  these  three  was  John  Stevens,  who 
by  "his  agency  in  the  invention,  introduction, 
and  gradual  improvement  of  steam-boats,  from 
the  early  and  imperfect  experiments  made  upon 
the  Hudson  and  Delaware,  between  1785  and 
1800,  up  to  the  admirable  mechanism  and  models 
of  the  boats  constructed  by  his  sons,  is  well 
known  to  all  who  have  paid  any  attention  to  the 
history  of  steam  navigation."  Colonel  Stevens 
has,ahowever,  other  less  known  claims  to  distinc- 
tion, for  the  enlightened  foresight  with  which  in 
another  instance  he  anticipated  the  progress  of 
improvement.  Nothing  now  occupies  a  larger 
portion  of  the  capital,  enterprise,  and  useful  sci- 
ence of  the  civilized  world,  than  railroads.  But 
many  years  before  their  adoption  and  use  upon 
any  extensive  scale,  and  long  before  the  combi- 
nation of  steam-carriages  with  them  had  been 
suggested  elsewhere,  Colonel  Stevens,  in  a  me- 
moir addressed  to  the  Canal  Commissioners  of 
New- York,  pointed  out  the  practicability  and 


APPENDIX.  113 

advantages  of  railroads  on  the  largest  scale. 
This  memoir,  and  the  correspondence  with  De 
"Witt  Clinton,  Robert  R.  Livingston,  and  Gouver- 
neur  Morris,  which  resulted  from  it,  he  published 
in  1812,  under  the  title  of  "  Documents  tending 
to  prove  the  superior  advantages  of  railways 
and  steam-carriages  over  canal  navigation."  In 
1819  he  again  brought  this  subject  before  the 
public,  in  another  form,  and  with  the  additional 
lights  which  the  experience  of  eight  years  had 
supplied.  In  an  elaborate  and  able  memorial, 
he  recommended  to  the  Legislature  of  New- York 
the  combining  of  railroads  with  the  great  sys- 
tem of  internal  improvement,  in  which  the  State 
was  then  engaged.  He  was,  however,  still  too 
far  in  advance  of  the  times,  and  though  his  me- 
morial received  a  respectful  reference,  and  was 
ordered  to  be  printed,  yet  it  led  to  no  immediate 
practical  result.* 

The  remaining  one  of  these  three  was  Guliau 
Verplanck,  a  gentleman  who,  in  stations  of  great 
trust  and  high  distinction,  commercial  or  political, 
acquitted  himself  with  ability  and  honour.  He 
was  the  second  President  of  the  Bank  of  New- 
York,  after  its  incorporation,  and  was  Speaker  of 
the  House  of  Assembly  of  the  State.  Accom- 
plished by  education  and  by  travel,  he  was  dis- 

• 

*  See  Verplanck's  Address  delivered  before  the  Philolexian 
and  Peithologian  Societies  of  Col.  College.  Note  3d. 


114  APPENDIX. 

tinguished  for  his  refined  literary  taste,  and  even 
as  a  graceful  poet. 

The  following  specimen  of  his  talent  as  such, 
which,  its  date  and  other  circumstances  taken 
into  view,  possesses  a  peculiar  interest,  was 
copied  from  the  window  of  an  inn  in  England  : 

Hail  happy  Britain  !  Freedom's  blest  retreat, 
Great  is  thy  power,  thy  wealth,  thy  glory  great. 
But  wealth  and  power  have  no  immortal  day, 
itfor  all  things  only  ripen  to  decay ; 
And  when  that  time  arrives,  the  lot  of  all, 
When  Britain's  glory,  wealth,  and  power  must  fall ; 
Then  shall  thy  sons — for  such  is  heaven's  decree- 
In  other  worlds  another  Britain  see, 
And  what  thou  art  America  shall  be. 

GULIAN  VERPLANCK,  1775. 

PAGE  61. 
*  *  *  «  in  which  soon  afterwards  he  sailed  for  England." 

Dr.  Cooper  does  not  appear  to  have  been  dis- 
gusted with  politics  in  consequence  of  the  trouble 
and  banishment  which  his  active  participation  in 
them  had  thus  brought  upon  him.  About  eighteen 
months  after  his  return  to  England,  on  the  13th 
of  December.  1776,  -  being  the  day  appointed 
for  a  public  fast  on  account  of  the  troubles  in 
America,"  he  preached  a  political  sermon  before 
the  University  of  Oxford,  which  was  published 
at  the  request  of  the  Vice  Chancellor  and  Heads 
of  Houses.  This  called  forth  soon  after  "  a  letter 
to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Cooper  on  the  Origin  of  Civil 


APPENDIX.  115 

Government,"  which  the  Monthly  Reviewers  style 
"  a  poignant  antidote  to  the  poison  contained  in 
Dr.  Cooper's  high-flying  tory  sermon.  They  think 
the  author  of  the  letter  rather  too  acrimonious  in 
his  language,  but  say,  "  We  approve,  however, 
the  principles  on  which  this  defender  of  liberty 
enters  the  lists  with  a  person  of  Dr.  Cooper's  abil- 
ities, and  the  reasons  which  he  has  assigned  for 
encountering  this  formidable  champion  of  despo- 
tism, will,  no  doubt,  be  satisfactory  to  the  active 
and  vigilant  friends  of  freedom."* 

Dr.  Cooper  afterwards  became  minister  of  the 
first  Episcopal  Chapel  in  Edinburgh,  where  he 
continued  to  officiate  for  a  very  respectable  con- 
gregation until  his  death,  which  was  very  sud- 
den, in  1785.  He  was  interred  there  in  the 
English  burying-ground.  His  epitaph,  written 
by  himself,  is  liable  to  Johnson's  just  censure  of 
all  endeavours  at  liveliness  and  humour  in  this 
kind  of  composition,  as  being  "  attempts  to  be 
jocular  upon  one  of  the  few  things  which  make 


Here  lies  a  priest  of  English  blood, 
Who,  living,  liked  whate'er  was  good : 
Good  company,  good  wine,  good  name, 
Yet  never  hunted  after  fame  ; 
But,  as  the  first  he  still  preferred, 
So  here  he  chose  to  be  interred, 

*  Monthly  Review,  vol.  56,  p.  473. 


116  APPENDIX. 

And,  unobserved,  from  crowds  withdrew, 
To  rest  among  a  chosen  few  ; 
In  humble  hope  that  sovereign  love 
Will  raise  him  to  be  blest  above. 

Dr.  Cooper  had  published  at  Oxford,  the  year 
before  he  left  it  for  America,  an  octavo  volume  of 
miscellaneous  poetry,  which  was  regarded  as 
affording  evidence  of  classical  refinement  and 
correct  taste,  rather  than  of  genius  or  any  re- 
markable poetic  talent.  A  judicious  critic  re- 
marks of  the  whole  collection,  that  it  "  denotes  a 
mind  capable  of  much  higher  things,  in  a  differ- 
ent application  of  its  powers." — Dr.  Cooper's 
political  pieces  were  distinguished  for  strength 
and  elegance  of  style,  as  well  as  for  a  boldness  of 
satire  and  severity  of  sarcasm  that  has  seldom 
been  surpassed.  "  His  moral  character  was  with- 
out any  serious  reproach,  although  grave  men 
were  occasionally  offended  by  the  freedom  and 
conviviality  of  his  social  habits.  The  memory 
of  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  his  conversation  has 
been  preserved  by  a  sarcasm  of  a  rival  wit  of  the 
opposite  party  : 

*  And  lo  !  a  cardinal's  hat  is  spread 
O'er  punster  Cooper's  reverend  head.'  "* 

That  the  idea  of  making  Dr.  Cooper,  not  a 
cardinal,  indeed,  but  a  bishop,  was  entertained, 

*  Trumbull's  Mac  Fingal.  This  notice  of  Dr.  Cooper  is 
chiefly  taken  from  the  Analectic  Magazine,  vol.  14. 


APPENDIX.  117 

appears  from  a  letter,  real  or  pretended,  from  an 
American  in  London,  about  two  months  before 
his  flight  from  the  College.  The  writer  of  this 
letter  speaks  of  the  appointment  of  a  bishop  for 
America  as  a  thing  resolved  on,  and  says,  that 
Dr.  Cooper,  of  New- York,  "  the  ministerial  writer 
there,"  is  the  person  intended  for  that  office. 

As  a  further  sample  of  Dr.  Cooper's  poetic 
talent,  and  as  possessing  some  interest  from  their 
close  connexion  with  his  personal  history,  the 
following  verses  have  been  taken  from  the  Gen- 
tleman's Magazine  for  July  1776,  where  they  are 
styled,  "Stanzas  written  on  the  evening  of  the 
10th  of  May,  1776,  by  an  Exile  from  America." 

To  thee,  O  God,  by  whom  I  live, 
The  tribute  of  my  soul  to  give 

On  this  eventful  day, 
To  thee,  O  God,  my  voice  I  raise ; 
To  thee  address  my  grateful  praise, 

And  swell  the  duteous  lay. 

Now  has  this  orb  unceasing  run 
Its  annual  circuit  round  the  sun. 

Since  when  the  heirs  of  strife, 
Led  by  the  pale  moon's  midnight  ray, 
And  bent  on  mischief,  urged  their  way, 

To  seize  my  guiltless  life. 

At  ease  my  weary  limbs  were  laid, 
And  slumbers  sweet  around  me  shed 
The  blessings  of  repose : 


118  APPENDIX. 

Unsconcious  of  the  dark  design, 

I  knew  no  base  intent  was  mine, 

And  therefore  feared  no  foes. 


When  straight,  a  heav'n  directed  youth, 
Whom  oft  my  lessons  led  to  truth, 

And  honour's  sacred  shrine, 
Advancing  quick  before  the  rest, 
With  trembling  tongue  my  ear  addrest, 

Yet  sure  in  voice  divine  : 

';  Awake  !  awake  !  the  storm  is  nigh — 
This  instant  rouse — this  instant  fly — 

The  next  may  be  too  late — 
Four  hundred  men,  a  murderous  band, 
Access,  importunate,  demand, 

And  shake  the  groaning  gate." 

I  wake — I  fly — while  loud  and  near, 
Dread  execrations  wound  my  ear, 

And  sore  my  soul  dismay. 
One  avenue  alone  remained, 
A  speedy  passage  there  I  gained, 

And  winged  my  rapid  way. 

That  moment,  all  the  furious  throng, 
An  entrance  forcing,  poured  along, 

And  filled  my  peaceful  cell ; 
Where  harmless  jest,  and  modest  mirth, 
And  cheerful  laughter* oft  had  birth, 

And  joy  was  wont  to  dwell. 


APPENDIX  119 

Not  e'en  the  Muses'  hallowed  fane* 
Their  lawless  fury  can  restrain, 

Or  check  their  headlong  haste  ; 
They  push  them  from  their  solemn  seats, 
Profane  their  long  revered  retreats, 

And  lay  their  Pindus  waste. 

Nor  yet  content — but  hoping  still 
Their  impious  purpose  to  fulfil, 

They  force  each  yielding  door ; 
And  while  their  curses  load  my  head 
With  piercing  steel  they  probe  the  bed, 

And  thirst  for  human  gore. 

Meanwhile  along  the  sounding  shore, 
Where  Hudson's  waves  incessant  roar, 

I  work  my  weary  way  ; 
And  skirt  the  windings  of  the  tide, 
My  faithful  pupil  by  my  side, 

Nor  wish  the  approach  of  day. 

At  length,  ascending  from  the  beach, 
With  hopes  revived,  by  morn  I  reach 

The  good  Palemon's  cot ; 
Where,  free  from  terror  and  affright, 
I  calmly  wait  the  coming  night 

My  every  fear  forgot. 


*  He  alludes  to  the  college  edifice  converted  into  a  military 
hospital,  and  which  a  note  on  this  passage  intended  for  his  Eng- 
lish readers  describes  as — "  an  elegnnt  edifice,  since  converted 
into  common  barracks." 


120  APPENDIX. 

'Twas  then  I  scaled  the  vessel's  side,* 
Where  all  the  amities  abide, 

That  mortal  worth  can  boast ; 
Whence,  with  a  longing,  lingering  view, 
I  bade  my  much  loved  York  adieu, 

And  sought  my  native  coast. 

Now,  all  composed,  from  danger  far, 
I  hear  no  more  the  din  of  war, 

Nor  shudder  at  alarms ; 
But  safely  sink  each  night  to  rest, 
No  malice  rankling  through  my  breast, 

In  Freedom's  fostering  arms. 

Though  stript  of  most  the  world  admires, 
Yet,  torn  by  few  untamed  desires, 

I  rest  in  calm  content ; 
And  humbly  hope  a  gracious  Lord 
Again  those  blessings  will  afford 

Which  once  his  bounty  lent. 

Yet,  still,  for  many  a  faithful  friend, 
Shall,  day  by  day,  my  vows  ascend 

Thy  dwelling,  O  my  God  ! 
Who  steady  still  in  virtue's  cause, 
Despising  faction's  mimic  laws, 

The  paths  of  peace  have  trod. 

Nor  yet  for  friends  alone— for  all, 

Too  prone  to  heed  sedition's  call, 

Hear  me,  indulgent  Heav'n  ! 

*  The  Kingfisher,  Captain  James  Montagu. 


APPENDIX.  121 

"  O  may  they  cast  their  arms  away, 
To  Thee  and  George  submission  pay, 
Repent,  and  be  forgiven. 


PAGE   63. 

*  *  "  the  whole  number  of  Students  educated  in  the 
College  prior  to  1775,  was  but  one  hundred." 

The  degrees  conferred  by  the  College  while 
it  was  styled  King's  College,  including  those 
granted  in  1775  and  1776,  were  the  following : 
viz. 

Ill     of    A.B.  6    of    M.D. 

98     «     A.M.  3     "     S.T.D. 

12     «     M.B.  2     «     LL.D. 

Those  granted  subsequently,  down  to  and 
including  the  Commencement  of  1845,  were  as 
follows,  viz. : 

1232    of    A.B.  35    of    M.D. 

425      «     A.M.  87     "     S.T.D. 

41      «     LL.  D. 

The  three  on  whom  the  degree  of  Doctor  in 
Divinity  was  conferred  by  King's  College,  were 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  Auchmuty,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Thomas  B.  Chandler,  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  John 
Ogilvie,  who  all  held  the  same  degree  previously 
— the  two  former  from  the  University  of  Oxford, 
the  last  named,  from  that  of  Aberdeen. 
6 


122  APPENDIX. 

The  only  two  on  whom  King's  College  con- 
ferred the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws,  were  its 
President,  Dr.  Cooper,  who  had  the  same  degree 
from  Oxford,  and  His  Excellency  William  Try- 
on,  Governor  of  the  Province  of  New  York. 


PAGE  74. 

*  *  "  the  important  public  services  of  his  previous 
long  career." 

That  we  do  not  overrate  the  public  services 
of  Dr.  Johnson,  and  that  this  first  President  of 
Columbia  College  was  no  less  distinguished  as  a 
jurist  and  statesman,  than  his  father,  the  first 
President  of  King's  College  had  been  as  a  divine, 
will  appear  from  the  following  brief  memoranda 
of  his  life. 

After  his  graduation  at  Yale  College,  in 
1744,  he  continued  his  studies  at  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, where  he  took  his  second  degree  in 
1747.  He  then  applied  himself  to  the  study  of 
the  law,  and  with  such  success — so  endowed  in 
mind,  in  voice,  in  person,  and  by  instruction  as 
an  orator — that  his  first  appearance  at  the  bar  is 
regarded  as  forming  an  epoch  in  the  legal  history 
of  his  native  State — the  very  low  condition  of 
legal  science,  of  general  literature,  and  of  taste,  at 
this  period  in  the  colony,  serving  to  exhibit  in 


APPENDIX.  123 

still  higher  relief  a  superiority,  which,  under  any 
circumstances,  would  have  shown  itself. 

He  soon  attained  the  highest  professional 
reputation,  and  after  repeatedly  representing  his 
-county  in  the  Colonial  Assembly,  was  sent  in 
1765,  as  delegate  of  Connecticut  to  a  Congress  of 
the  Colonies  assembled  in  this  city.  The  address 
of  that  body  to  the  king,  which  feelingly  por- 
trayed the  situation  of  the  colonies,  and  firmly 
but  respectfully  asserted  their  rights,  as  forming 
a  portion  of  the  British  Empire,  was  prepared  by 
a  committee,  in  which  Mr.  Johnson  was  associ- 
ated with  Robert  R.  Livingston,  of  New- York, 
and  William  Murdoch,  of  Maryland,  but  was 
principally  written  by  him.  In  the  following 
year  he  was  sent  to  England  as  the  agent  of 
Connecticut,  and  especially  in  the  management 
of  a  cause  of  high  importance  to  the  colony,  as 
involving  not  only  its  title  to  an  extensive  tract 
of  land,  but  even  its  chartered  rights. 

This  cause,  removed  from  Connecticut  by 
appeal  to  the  King  and  Lords  in  Council,  he 
defended  before  that  high  tribunal  with  singular 
ability  and  zeal.  Detained  in  England  for  above 
four  years  by  this  important  litigation,  he  made 
acquaintance  with  many  of  the  brightest  lumina- 
ries of  the  period.  Seeker,  Berkeley,  Lowth, 
Home,  Porteous,  Newton,  and  Lord  Mansfield 
were  among  his  warmest  friends — Johnson  took 


124  APPENDIX. 

a  particular  liking  to  his  transatlantic  namesake, 
and  maintained  a  correspondence  with  him  for 
several  years  after  his  return.  The  University 
of  Oxford  conferred  on  him  the  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Civil  Law,  and  he  was  elected  a  Fellow  of 
the  Royal  Society,  on  the  recommendation  of 
Sir  John  Pringle,  who  was  then  its  President. 
The  year  after  his  return  from  England,  he  was 
appointed  a  Judge  of  the  Superior  Court  of  Con- 
necticut, and  two  years  later,  a  delegate  to  the 
Congress,  whose  labours  eventuated  in  the  De- 
claration of  Independence  ;  but  highly  important 
professional  engagements  preventing  his  attend- 
ance, another  delegate  was  chosen  in  his  place. 

In  1780,  he  was  re-elected  a  member  of  the 
Council  of  Connecticut,  now  an  independent 
State ;  and  in  1783,  he  was  employed  to  plead 
at  Trenton,  before  Commissioners  appointed  by 
Congress,  the  cause  between  his  State  and  Penn- 
sylvania, in  which  the  former  claimed,  under 
her  charter,  lands  which  now  form  a  portion  of 
Ohio.  In  this  important  cause,  which  engaged 
the  greatest  legal  talents  of  the  country,  Dr. 
Johnson's  eiforts  are  said  to  have  been  unri- 
valled. 

In  1784,  he  was  elected  to  the  Congress, 
which  in  December  of  that  year  removed  to  this 
city,  and  in  which  he  continued  until  chosen  a 
delegate  to  the  Convention  which  formed  the 


APPENDIX.  125 

Constitution  of  the  United  States.  As  such  he 
contributed  greatly  to  reconcile  conflicting  inter- 
ests, and  was  in  several  instances  the  happy  in- 
strument of  conciliation  between  the  jealousies 
and  fears  of  the  smaller,  and  the  demands  of  the 
larger  States. 

In  January,  1788,  being  then  President  of 
Columbia  College,  he  was  chosen  by  Connecticut 
as  one  of  her  Senators  in  Congress,  under  the 
new  Constitution.  To  him  and  his  colleague, 
Oliver  Ellsworth,  was  committed  the  important 
duty  of  framing  a  judiciary  system  for  the  United 
States,  and  the  bill  which  they  reported,  was 
adopted  with  little  alteration.  On  the  removal 
of  Congress  from  New- York,  Dr.  Johnson  re- 
signed his  seat  in  the  Senate,  and  devoted  him- 
self wholly  to  the  duties  of  his  presidency,  until 
the  year  1800,  when,  as  has  been  stated,  he 
sought  the  repose  to  which  he  was  so  well  en- 
titled, and  which  he  was  permitted  to  enjoy  in 
this  life  for  a  period  of  above  nineteen  years — 
"  His  age,  so  far  extended  beyond  the  ordinary 
lot  of  man,  the  purity  of  his  life,  the  kindness 
and  humility  of  his  disposition,  and  the  unshaken 
confidence  of  his  religious  faith,  all  conspired  to 
invest  his  character  with  a  sacredness,  which 
almost  made  him  regarded  by  his  family  and 
friends  as  a  being  of  another  world  still  linger- 
ing among  them." 


126  APPENDIX. 

The  writer  of  the  Obituary  Notice  of  Presi- 
dent Johnson,  from  which  the  above  has  for  the 
most  part  been  taken,  remarks  that  he  had  fre- 
quently applied  to  him  the  following  noble  lines 
of  Samuel  Johnson ;  and  that  no  language  could 
more  happily  describe  his  virtuous  and  venera- 
ble age : — 

"  The  virtues  of  a  temperate  prime, 

"  Bless  with  an  age  exempt  from  scorn  and  crime, 

"  An  age  that  melts  with  unperceived  decay, 

"  And  glides  in  pious  innocence  away ; 

"  Whose  peaceful  day  benevolence  endears, 

"  Whose  night  congratulating  conscience  cheers, 

"  The  general  favorite  as  the  general  friend, 

•'f  Such  age  there  is,  and  who  shall  wish  its  end  ?" 


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